Available:*
Library | Material Type | Item Barcode | Shelf Number | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Avon-Washington Township Public Library | Juvenile Picture Book Hardback | 120791000907665 | J P BEA | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Two children experience a tornado.
Although she sees them safely to the cellar, Mama has to leave Lucille and Natt and go help Mr. Lyle, an elderly neighbor. She tells the children not to open the door until she comes back. But Mama doesn't come back, and Lucille must comfort Natt throughout the terrifying experience of a tornado.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-In this vividly written story, Natt and Lucille learn that life can change with terrifying rapidity when, on a lovely summer day as they are playing outdoors, an onrushing tornado drives them into the storm cellar. After seeing them to safety, their mother goes to help an elderly neighbor seek shelter. Lucille tries to cheer Natt up with little games, but both children are frightened, especially when the storm screeches and tears at the cellar door. Suddenly all is quiet. The siblings emerge and find the sun shining once again and their mother and neighbor crawling out from underneath his porch. Despite the wreckage of an overturned truck, toppled trees, and sagging roofs, the children find joy in collecting sparkling hailstones and returning to their porch swing. Sweeping, expressive double-page spreads show them enjoying their play, then racing first to their mobile home as the sky is split by lightning and turns charcoal blue, and then, wind whipped, running to the cellar in the backyard where they sit, tense and terrified, in the dark until they can emerge into the sunlight to find the ground covered with ice diamonds and everyone safe.- (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
A rural family and its neighbor face potential disaster as a tornado heads for their homes in this suspenseful though ultimately reassuring picture book. Natt and Lucille enjoy a sultry summer day eating Popsicles and pretending to be royalty. As they dart through the yard, a serious storm kicks up and brings them indoors. When Mama spots an ominous funnel cloud in the distance, she sends Natt and Lucille racing out toward the storm cellar built into the yard while she heads next door to help Mr. Lyle take shelter. During the next several minutes, Natt and Lucille hunker alone in the dark, waiting for the storm to pass and afraid for Mama and Mr. Lyle's safety. Happily, the twister moves on, having caused minimal damage, and Natt and Lucille are quickly reunited with Mama. Beard (The Pumpkin Man from Piney Creek) gets all the details right: the sky turning the color of Mama's guacamole, an ominous silence followed by the "monstrous howling" of wind. In a style vastly different from her work in Loud Emily and closer to that in Lester's Dog, Carpenter's soft and hazy pastels capture all the colors of the changing sky. Her portraits of Natt and Lucille have an emotional pull, showing the kids' move from playful to fearful to thankful as the ordeal begins and ends. Ages 4-8. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
When the sky turns green and furious clouds spawn a twister, Lucille and Natt's mother hurries them into the cellar while she goes to help their neighbor. Dark pastel illustrations highlight the children's fear as they face the storm alone. Afterward, they find Mama safe in spite of the storm's damage. Beard's use of familiar and appealing details makes the story both secure and frighteningly believable. From HORN BOOK Fall 1999, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A riveting adventure about an encounter with one of nature's most formidable manifestations. Beard (The Flimflam Man, 1998, etc.) presents a suspenseful account of Lucille and her brother Natt's experience during an afternoon tornado; readers will keep turning the pages until the climactic conclusion. Natt and Lucille are left alone in shelter of the cellar during the storm as their mother goes to assist an elderly neighbor. With quiet courage the two face the storm, relying upon each other for moral and physical support. Beard's lyrical descriptions of Natt and Lucille's experiences lend a you-are-there immediacy to the tale, while Carpenter's generously colored artwork vibrates with the intensity of nature unleashed. Turquoise skies quickly turn to dark indigo as the storm approaches. Deep, foreboding grays predominate as Natt and Lucille wait out the storm; with the return of lighter skies and colors, the children emerge from their shelter. A rousing tale. (Picture book. 4-8)
Booklist Review
Ages 4^-8. Two thrilling picture books capture the sudden terror of a tornado through the eyes of a child. Beard's story is told by a young girl who finds shelter with her younger brother in a cellar near their rural trailer home. As the storm builds and the power goes out, their mother rushes the children to the cellar and then tries to help an elderly neighbor. The frightened children miss her and worry about her. They huddle together in the clammy underground storeroom, playing games to try to keep busy. The roaring wind rises and rises, then suddenly everything is silent, until "with a ferocious roar, the twister strikes" like a howling monster. Carpenter's stormy chalklike illustrations are filled with wild movement against the dark sky as the people fight the wind and shout and scream and see one another through. Just as powerful is the warm, tearful embrace when they are all safe together afterward, shaking and crying and holding one another tight, the landscape torn up around them. The art is quite different from Carpenter's playful acrylic folk style in Alexis O'Neill's tall tale Loud Emily (1998). These realistic illustrations are more like those Carpenter did for Naomi Shihab Nye's Sitti's Secrets (1994), in which the loving bonds hold strong. Graham's setting is a thriving cattle farm on the Canadian prairie, and her handsome, realistic landscape paintings show an idyllic hardworking family. Matthew is safe on the tall shoulders of his dad, striding past the barnyard, over the hayfields, and into the pasture, where Dad is fixing the fence to keep the herd of Holsteins secure. Then the storm rises, and Matthew shows Dad the funnel cloud roaring toward them like a towering demon that eats everything in its path. Dad scoops Matthew into his arms and races with him to shelter in a narrow culvert. As in Beard's book, afterward there is the heartfelt reunion; mother, father, and son "wove themselves into long, thankful hugs." Several pages show the devastation and how neighbors come to work together and help. Besides the drama of the storm, the paintings show the child's first realization that Dad can't shelter him from everything, even as he knows the strength of their love. --Hazel Rochman