The Man Who Named the Clouds

The Man Who Named the Clouds

By: Julie Hannah and Joan Holub

Illustrated by: Paige Billin-Frye

 

 This is the story of Luke Howard, a man who kept a journal about clouds almost his whole life before finally working out a way to classify them. Luke's interest began very young, and by age ten he had started journaling about clouds. This story of his process of recording and creating the cloud identification system is interspersed with the story of Grace and her adventures in keeping her first weather journal, as inspired by Luke Howard's journal. 

What makes this book so great is that while it seems like a normal book about a man who did something cool, three pages in, there is a surprise. While the book is about Luke Howard, every few pages we get to check in with Grace's weather journal. It's great because it acts as a comparison, showing that it wasn't just that Luke Howard  was super smart, but that any child can keep a weather journal.

Additionally, throughout the story of Luke's life, we get to see many interesting historical facts about sailing at the time, the Quakers, and the first hot-air balloon. This book is great for the story it tells about Luke Howard, the science involved about clouds, and the evident throughout Luke Howard's life. The book takes you all the way through his classification of clouds with names we still use today.

I loved this book! The story of Luke Howard is a great story that shows perseverance and focus, even at such a young age. I had never heard the story of how we got our cloud classification system and it was definitely not something I would have ever thought to have looked up on my own, but I really liked this book and would recommend it to people.