17 May Review: Kersplash! A cloud bursts
Kersplash! A cloud bursts
Series: Forces of Nature
Author: Jessica Kulekjian
Illustrator: Zoe Si
Kids Can Press, 2025
ISBN: 9781525308901 (hardcover)
$21.99 CAD (hardcover)
32 pages
Ages: 5 to 8 years
Review by: Helen Hauser
This picture book is told in two layers—a narrative one and a factual one. The narrative layer follows a cloud as it grows, becomes a thundercloud, exhausts itself in a rainstorm, and returns to ground to re-start the water cycle. The factual layer is told by a red bird who speaks in informational sidebars related to the cloud’s activities. The narrative layer uses onomatopoeia and fairly simple language and the factual layer uses more complicated terms like “vapor molecules” and “condense”, so this book either requires an adult to explain or an older independent reader. The book ends with more detailed—but still simplified—information about the water cycle, types of clouds, and the life cycle of a thunderstorm. While the water cycle information isn’t particularly innovative, the cloud types and thunderstorm diagram are more unusual and could help get kids interested in different aspects of meteorology.