Sector 7

Sector 7	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Written and Illustrated by David Wiesner	1999
Fiction	48 pages
Reading Level age 5-9	Caldecott Honor Book

Summary

This is a wordless book telling of a boy who goes on a school field trip to the Empire State Building. It’s foggy at the top, there’s hardly anything he can see. A cloud forms in front of him, taking his hat. The cloud shows the boy his friends and floats him above the city, far into the sky, arriving at sector 7. Sector 7 is the cloud dispatch center. The cloud shows how all clouds are tired of being boring shapes. The boy draws up new plans for them, all sea creatures, including a lion fish, puffer fish, an octopus and tons of spotted and striped fish. The command center sees the commotion and has the cloud send the boy home. The boy floats down, just catching the bus. On the ride home, he watches out the window at all the amazing sea creatures the clouds formed. Everyone is amazed and points up to the clouds. The small cloud follows the boy’s bus home and stay’s with him. The last picture is of the boy asleep on the cloud, floating at the ceiling, and out the window a school of cloud fish gliding past.

Response

I really enjoyed this picture book. I loved that there were no words. I had to rely on the facial expressions and gestures of the characters. The plot was great, who hasn’t at one point in their lives watched the clouds roll by and finding abstract shapes and creatures there in.

Potential Problems

I think that there were no problems to be concerned about in this book.

Recommendations

I would recommend this to those who love watching clouds and with a big imagination. This would be a good introduction to a weather and cloud formation unit.