Caldecott Honor Book
This story starts before we even see the title page with a boy drawing fish on the fogged up window of a school bus. The school bus takes the children to the Empire State Building on a field trip. They are taken up to the observatory to look over the city. However, the fog is so dense that it's hard to see. The clouds are all around the Empire State Building. In one cloud we begin to see a face as he steals our main character's hat, gloves and scarf. The cloud and the boy become friends, and the boy rides with the could to the Sector 7 Could Dispatch Center. The inside is much like a train station with clouds coming and going where they're told by the workers. The workers tell the clouds in the assignment center, how large and what shape they should be. Instead, the boy draws his own drawings of different kinds of fish for the clouds to be. The workers see the shapes of the clouds and get very upset. The boy is sent back to Manhattan where he is reunited with his classmates. However, for the rest of that day, all the clouds are of his design.
This story had some of the most beautiful pictures. The magnificence of the outside of the Cloud Dispatch Center reminded me of the Polar Express. It's big, and very impressive. The story encourages such creativity that I would love to see it used in an elementary classroom. It would remind kids to always use their creativity no matter what anyone tells you.
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