Joan Holub and her mother, Julie Hannah, have written a wonderfully informative and well-paced book on Luke Howard, a Quaker chemist in 19th century London that put his grammar school Latin to good use. This is the first time I've EVER understood how a cloud gets made or what the weatherman means by a low-pressure system, so thank you Joan and Julie!

The watercolor and graphite spreads of Luke's life and story are interspersed with modern day scans of a little girl's science fair notebook. The little girl keeps a weather journal like Luke did 200 years ago and also explains how to make a rain gauge, compare snowflakes, and determine the distance of a lightning storm. I love this format. Hopefully it is one in a series for Joan and her mother of fun non-fiction.

Luke's character is nicely fleshed out. There are great photos of clouds (out my window currently are stratocumulus and nimbostratus, thank you very much) and my FAVORITE part--Luke's actual paintings of clouds from 1803-1811. Makes me want to trade my TV in for a barometer and paint the sky everyday.