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Summary
Summary
The wind is powerful and stormy, mischievous and unpredictable. It can lift birds into the air and drive the clouds and rain. It can spin windmills, steal hats, and sail boats across the seas.
In this magical story, Frank and Devin Asch bring the wind to life and send a young girl soaring, tumbling, and twirling on her own exciting windy-day adventure. This is the fourth in a group of picture books that explore nature.
Author Notes
Frank Asch was born on August 6, 1946, in Somerville, NJ. In 1969 he graduated from Cooper Union in New York City with a Bachelor's of Fine Arts. Since then he has taught in both the United States and abroad. He has also organized art, writing, puppetry, and creative dramatics workshops for children all over the country.
In 1976 Mr. Asch and his wife started their own children's theatre called The Belly Buttons. In l989, Frank Asch and Vladimir Vagin published Here Comes the Cat!, the first Russian/American collaboration on a children's book, which has since received the Russian National Book Award. Mr. Asch also joined forces with naturalist and photographer Ted Levin for a series of poetry books for children. In 1996, their first book, Sawgrass Poems, was named to the John Burroughs List of Nature Books for Young Readers. Like a Windy Day was released in fall 2002. It was the fourth and last book in the "element" book series that already includes The Earth and I, Water, and The Sun Is My Favorite Star.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-In a poetic text, a girl imagines herself doing all of the things that the wind can do. The brief story is filled with action verbs as the child follows the personified wind through the countryside, into town, and along the beach and riverside. The exciting pen-and-ink illustrations were colorized in Adobe Photoshop. Broad and sweeping spreads are filled with movement as the child tumbles, races, and flies until she settles at the end "like a gentle breeze." While the pictures are large enough for group sharing, there are many clever and amusing details to be found on closer inspection. Youngsters will find socks and neckties flying through the air, a magician's hat complete with rabbit blowing away, and a TV inside an apartment turned on to a weather report. This book will be useful for units on the weather, or simply for reading together.-Marlene Gawron, Orange County Library, Orlando, FL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Following their Baby Duck's New Friend, the father-and-son team offers a rollicking testament to the excitement whipped up by the wind. A girl watching a golden leaf swept away on the breeze exclaims, "I want to play like a windy day." The girl, the leaf and the wind (depicted as a cavorting, childlike apparition shown in profile, its facial contours matching the girl's) frolic across the pages. The girl's rhyming speech pays homage to their antics ("I want to zoom down hillsides/ and race through streets./ I want to scatter seeds,/ turn windmills,/ fly kites,/ wave flags,/ and snap wet sheets"). Here, the wind stretches out its hand to turn a windmill while the girl does a cartwheel and clasps a dandelion whose seeds billow in the gust. Brisk, digitally colorized pen-and-ink drawings include sundry background details (e.g., an upended trash can, laundry billowing on the line between two buildings, etc.). Curves, swirls and swaths of layered color give a fluid feel to the artwork. A fun fall read. Ages 3-7. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
In flowing verse interspersed with the refrain I want to play like a windy day, a little girl imagines all of the ways that she would play if she were the wind (I want to shake the dew from a spider's web / and help her babies soar). In the digitally colored art, in which waves of color drift evocatively across the page, the imaginative artists pair our frolicking real narrator with her personified wind playmate. From HORN BOOK Spring 2003, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Using just a few words per page, this father-and-son team creates an autumnal ode in which a girl imagines herself one with the wind. "I want to play like a windy day," reads the opening; a framed panel shows the child gazing at the breeze above. "I want to zoom down hillsides." With flowing hair and arms outstretched to touch a floating leaf, the wind looks just like her. Throughout, mural-like panels appear on double-page spreads; as the girl and her wind twin travel from city to countryside to seashore and back the leaf remains just out of reach. As in their first collaboration, Baby Duck's New Friend (2001) the Asch duo's pen-and-ink illustrations are digitally enhanced allowing for a softening of lines and a diaphanous overlay of color. In the first spread, for example, undulating layers of lavender, robin's egg, and cornflower blue create a colorful horizon against which the ghostlike wind glides. As the girl takes flight ("I want to scatter seeds"), the dandelion she's holding loosens its delicate spores that flow like tiny white birds above the verdant glade. The dreamlike imagery enchants and the simple text is sure to inspire interpretive movement from the preschool set. A good bet for sharing on a blustery day. (Picture book. 3-7)
Booklist Review
K-Gr. 2. This isn't as text intensive as Robert McClosky's classic Time of Wonder (1957), but Asch has clearly taken some inspiration from that book. His subtle exploration of the properties of wind works equally well as story or science. A little girl wants to «play like a windy day.» She mentions all the things the wind can do and imagines herself doing them. A ghostly image of the girl appears in the wind, personifying it and making clear how the wind behaves. Aside from a few blowing hats and some driving rain, only the benevolent aspects of wind are shown: the wind rustles the grass, flies kites, and helps spider babies soar. The day ends with the wind as a gentle breeze. The illustrations, in simple shapes, have been nicely colorized by computer to show subtle shadings and overlays as well as flat, bright planes of color. A good choice for classrooms and public libraries, as well for reading at home. Marta Segal.
