ONCE UPON A CLOUD

Falling between Charles G. Shaw’s elemental It Looked Like Spilt Milk (1947) and the sophistication of Pat Cummings’s C.L.O.U.D.S. (1986) or David Wiesner’s Sector 7 (1999), this rhymed reverie considers what clouds might be: cotton candy? Ice cream for angels? mashed potatoes? “ . . . whirling wind / in a swirl-away rush?” Father Time’s beard? No, the youngest of several narrators concludes as, in Mahurin’s final richly colored, soft-focus scene, she snuggles down on a pillow, “Clouds are just dreams . . . that wander about.” Walker’s rhyming isn’t always sure—“Are clouds comfy cushions / where birds take their naps, / resting their wings / and hiding from cats?”—but he displays an active imagination, and Mahurin catches his dreamy tone perfectly, adding further buoyancy with vivid lighting and dashes of wit. (Picture book. 6-8)