The cloudspotter by Tom McLaughlin

Bloomsbury, 2015. ISBN 9781408854969
(Age: 4+) Recommended. Clouds, Imagination, Daydreams, Friendship. Franklin is a cloudspotter. He spends the day with his binoculars and backpack spotting all the clouds in the sky. He imagines them to be all sorts of things and then imagines himself to be part of them, in them, on them or driving them. One day a scruffy dog begins to hang around Franklin. Franklin has no friends and decides that he does not need any so when the dog stays around more often, becoming part of his daydreams, he does something about it. He makes a hot air balloon and puts the dog into the basket and sees him off.
But he soon realises that he misses the dog, the dog had become his friend. Fortunately the air balloon snags on a tree and the two are reunited. They can now watch the clouds together and have adventures together.
This is a lovely story of friendship, of not seeing a friend nearby until it is almost too late, of doing things together.
I loved the soft illustrations, conjuring up the feel and look of various clouds in the sky, drawing them to suggest the images the child sees in them.
As a lovely tale of friendship or as an introduction to a group of lessons about clouds and their formation, or lessons outside looking at clouds this book will prove to be most helpful.
Fran Knight