Seven Skies All at Once
by Ted Kooser; illus. by Matt Myers
Primary    Candlewick    32 pp.
7/25    9781536229004    $18.99
e-book ed.  9781536249637    $18.99

While two families hang out their laundry on a rooftop clothesline connecting their apartment buildings, a larger metaphor plays out farther up in the atmosphere. “The skies had hung out their freshly washed clouds to dry, wanting them to smell like air, but it looked like rain might be coming.” The text focuses on the poetry of the changing weather, expressively personifying seven different skies and their respective types of clouds. One sky wads up socks and underwear as it passes by, while another carries pillowcases trimmed with lace. Factual information lurks within these fanciful descriptions, and the clouds are almost always identified by scientific names corresponding to their shapes and behavior. Oil paintings done on wood panels bring out the rich detail of the rapidly shifting cloud formations and the city beneath. Each illustration expands on the text using unexpected angles, reflections, and perspectives to capture the tone. While the skies play the lead in the narrative, the art quietly tells the story of an emerging friendship between two children in the neighboring buildings as they help hang out the wash. Just as the seventh sky brings the threatened rain, one child sends a note across the line to the other…and a conversation starts. A rainbow soon follows. This multilayered visual treat offers much to think and talk about, from cityscapes to the science of the skies to new friends.

From the September/October 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.