Little Cloud and Lady Wind

by Toni Morrison, Slade Morrison, Sean Qualls (Illustrator)

Overview

Little Cloud likes her own place in the sky, away from the other clouds. There, the sky is all hers. She is free to make her own way and go where she wishes. Can Lady Wind show Little Cloud the power of being with others? Will Little Cloud agree there is strength in unity and change her ways? A fresh take on a classic story, Little Cloud and Lady Wind will teach kids how to work together to achieve their goals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416985235
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books
Publication date:	01/26/2010
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	525,600
Product dimensions:	10.20(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.10(d)
Lexile:	AD550L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) was a Nobel Prize–winning American author, editor, and professor. Her contributions to the modern canon are numerous. Some of her acclaimed titles include: The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and Beloved, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. She won the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Slade Morrison was born in Ohio and educated in New York City. He studied art at SUNY Purchase and collaborated with his mother, Toni Morrison, on their books for children.

Sean Qualls’s work is a mixed media combination of painting, drawing, and collage. He has illustrated many picture books, including Before John Was a Jazz Giant, which received a Coretta Scott King Honor Award; The Poet Slave of Cuba, a BCCB Blue Ribbon Book; Dizzy, an ALA Notable Book and a Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and Child Magazine best book, as well as BCCB Blue Ribbon Book and a Booklist Editor’s Choice; and Emmanuel’s Dream, which was a Schneider Award winner and an Amazon Best Book of the Month. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Hometown:

Princeton, New Jersey, and Manhattan

Date of Birth:

February 18, 1931

Date of Death:

August 5, 2019

Place of Birth:

Lorain, Ohio

Place of Death:

New York

Education:

Howard University, B.A. in English, 1953; Cornell, M.A., 1955

Editorial Reviews

The Morrisons present a modern fable about the need for independence as well as the beauty of being a part of everything else. Little Cloud discovers "I can be me and part of something too."—Yellow Brick Road, May/June 2010

From the Publisher

Qualls's gorgeous acrylic, collage and colored-pencil drawings set the tone for this…lulling, maternal take on the simplest of stories.
—The New York Times

Julie Just

The Morrisons (Peeny Butter Fudge) examine the problem of being part of a group while maintaining one's identity. Quietly rebellious Little Cloud will not join the other clouds, who want to “terrify the earth with storm and thunder.” She loves the earth and wants to live there. Lady Wind carries her through a storm and brings her to a valley spangled with dew, mist, and a rainbow, as Little Cloud learns she can be part of the earth without losing her cloudness. In Qualls's (Before John Was a Jazz Giant) collages, Little Cloud has pensive expressions and puffy blue hair, while Lady Wind has the flowing hair and gown of a goddess. The homey, cut-and-paste nature of the pencil lines, cut-paper stars, and pale blue paint strokes forms a comfortable counterpoint to the mythic dimensions of the story. Despite some lyrical passages (“Little Cloud looked again and saw a necklace of many colors stretching from her place in the sky to the valley”), the text sometimes feels heavy-handed; the conclusion, in contrast to the story's espousal of freedom, seems preordained. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

PreS-Gr 3—When the biggest cloud calls all of the others together in order to "terrify the earth with storm and thunder," Little Cloud wanders away to a quiet place in the sky. She enjoys her freedom and longs to engage with such earthly delights as flowers and ocean waves. Lady Wind observes her dreams and carries her off, past the pursuing thunderclouds, the lightning, and the dark mountains. In the morning, they arrive at a place where Little Cloud can see a rainbow, dew falling from her garments, and mist, and she happily declares, "Now I see. I can be me and part of something too." Young readers will empathize with Little Cloud's desire to be independent and free from what is expected of her, and they will feel her happiness at finding a place where she can realize her dreams with the help of a nurturing figure. But the oft-told story is tired, and even Qualls's whimsical depictions of a cherubic little girl with cloud hair and a Thelonius Monk-channeling storm cloud can't freshen it. The message of Aesop's "The Bundle of Sticks," that there is "strength in unity"—the fable that Morrison claims inspired this tale—is lost on young readers.—C. J. Connor, Campbell County Public Library, Cold Spring, KY

School Library Journal

The award-winning mother and her son once again join forces for a picture book. But whereas Peeny Butter Fudge (2009) was spread with warmth and humor, this presents a wildly peculiar fable on belonging-sort of. Little Cloud drifts away from the stormy mass that is bent on earthly destruction. She then discovers a love for the "[p]urple mountains with scarves of snow" that she sees below and yearns to skip and play thereon. She is scooped up by Lady Wind, who flies with her through a storm until morning breaks, and Little Cloud sees the pearly dew, a rainbow and mist. Blissfully she proclaims that "I am me and all the things I dreamed of." Qualls's paintings feature a blue-haired Little Cloud with very red lips. Images float by in swirls and swoops, valiantly trying to make sense of the text. All in all, once past the '60s love-in mentality, the story seems to be an homage to Aeolian spirits that reworks the Aesop fable, "A Bundle of Sticks." But can farmers depend on gentle mists to water their fields? Doubtful. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews