Books About Weather Kids Will Enjoy

The weather is changing as the fall seems more like winter in many places, and it’s a great time to talk to your children about weather. Here are some of our favorite books about weather to read.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi and Ron Barrett has long been a favorite. This book has a special place in my heart that also houses Corduroy and Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day! This book will take you to another dimension in the way that is usually reserved for longer books or movies. In just a few pages you will dive into the land of Chewandswallow and its magical weather. See Chewandswallow is a place where the food falls from the sky. Instead of rain or snow, they get hot dogs and a drizzle of soda, or peas and carrots! Things started going wrong in Chewandswallow though and the weather went nuts! I love asking children what food they wished fell from the sky and why after reading this book.

I Love The Rain by Margaret Park Bridges is a sweet book about relishing the wet weather instead of hiding from it. Two little girls are on their way home from school, one hiding under her umbrella the other tongue out loving the rain. With a little encouragement, both girls are loving all the amazing things about rainy weather, from racing raindrops on the bus windows to comparing the sounds of the rain to tap dancers!

Weather by Pamela Chanko and Daniel Moreton is the perfect little nonfiction book about weather for toddlers and young preschoolers. It is short and has big interesting photos depicting different weather. Don’t be fooled, it looks like nothing. But trust me little guys will ask you to read it again and again. It’s important that children get read a variety of things. Not simply fiction, so don’t be afraid to get your child a simple little nonfiction book like this one!

Un-Brella by Scott Franson is such a cool book. There is not a single line of text in the book, and it’s not missing a thing! Vivid and layered, the illustrations tell the story perfectly. A little girl has a magical umbrella that brings the sun on a snowy day and snow when her yard is green and sunny. My 2-year-old was beside himself laughing and saying “No no” to the little girl wearing her swimsuit in the snow. Grab this book and enjoy!

 

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats is a classic. Some classics are the type of books that lose their relevance and leave readers wondering what the hype is about. This book is timeless. A little boy goes exploring in the snow and discovers his world in a new way. The illustrations are magical and the way that they convey the emotions this little boy experiences throughout the day are nothing short of perfect.

 

Here Comes Jack Frost by Kazuno Kohara is another fantastic book that will have you aching for snow. A little boy is lonely after his friends have all gone into hibernation for the winter when Jack Frost shows up. They frolic and play exploring all the fun that winter has to offer friends but when the first signs of spring arrive Jack is gone. The illustrations are perfectly simple and will suck you into a wintery world that you won’t want to leave. My students love this book and it is the perfect match for any number of winter activities. 

James and the Rain by Karla Kushkin is another great find. The story is about James who suits up when the rains come down and go about asking all the animals if they like the rain and what they do in it. The story builds with numbers as it goes along. The first animal James meets is 1 cow, the next are 2 ducks and the numbers continue to grow and grow. All the animals follow James and he has quite the entourage by the time he returns home. A great book for anyone like us that live with rain most days this time of year.

How the Ladies Stopped the Wind by Bruce McMillan is a charming story that is reminiscent of a folk tale, about ladies in Iceland who decide to plant trees to stop the wind. There are some fantastic bits of humor for parents and amazing illustrations!  I love that it was the women and their chickens who took it upon themselves to stop the havoc that the wind was causing them.  As someone who holds a degree in history and focused often on the history of women, it’s not a rare tale for women to band together and quietly fix things collectively.

What Will the Weather Be Like Today? by Paul Rodgers is another wonderful weather book. It takes readers to all different environments from deserts to deep in the ocean. And it talks about the weather or lack of weather in each. I like the illustrations and the rhyming text. We also liked the special section at the end of the book that uses photographs of children in different weather and asks the readers to answer questions about the photographs. Great teaching tool for preschoolers.

 

It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw goes perfectly with any activity about clouds really. In the book all different shapes are shown and readers can guess they look like ice cream cones, a bird, but really they are all clouds. After reading this simple book I like going outside to see the clouds and see what shapes, and objects we can find in them.

Have you read any of these books about the weather? Do you have any that you’d add to the list? Comment below or share on my Facebook page!

For more quick tips on helping your child learn to read check out my book; Raising A Rock-Star Reader. It is packed with fun ideas for families, book lists, and advice for parents.