Rain Play

by Cynthia Cotten

Here it comes Cool drops splash down, scattering the grown-ups. But the children love romping in the rain, until "BOOM "This joyous, rhyming poem captures the many delights of a rainy day." This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805067957
• ISBN13: 9780805067958
• Release Date: July 2010
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
• Length: 26 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 7.4" x 11.2"
• Age Range: 3 to 6 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 1

Customer Reviews

summer storms no problem!

a group of kids are gathered in the park. A sudden rain shower comes up but the kids play on. They find all sorts of fun games to play! Their fun is over when lightening and thunder drive them home! this book was just the right length for my 3 year old to enjoy. The story could be used as a spring borad to discuss weather safety.

And flowers never bend in the rainfall

I was working the reference desk of the library one day when a boy that couldn't have been more than seven-years-old came up to me. He had that deadly serious look to his face that kids sometimes get when they want to impress upon you the importance of their request. Very politely he asked me for every single Javaka Steptoe book we had in the collection. I have to admit that I was a little surprised. We pretty much have all the man's books, but when a kid requests an author or artist by name it tends to be pretty rote. Eric Carle or Mo Willems or Ezra Jack Keats. Even then, kids as young as seven usually ask for characters, not artists, so right off the bat I was impressed. I quickly yanked all the books off the shelf and handed them to the kid, wondering if maybe his parent had put him up to asking in the first place. But nope. That child sat down and inspected every single Javaka Steptoe book like they were the most precious possession he'd ever had the honor to handle. I like to think back to that kid sometimes whenever a new Steptoe book gets published, and I thought of it again recently when I picked up "Rain Play" by Cynthia Cotton. It's a very brief, very simple rhyming tale of kids caught in a summer storm, and with Mr. Steptoe's accompanying text it may well be a big hit with anyone who has ever done a dance in a drenching downpour or two. On a warm summer day a bunch of kids hang out in a playground. "At the park / the sky grows dark." Soon raindrops are falling and a lot of people take off. "Raindrops splatter / People scatter / But we stay / awhile and play." Rain games and splashing commence for some, while others are content to capture the droplets in the curve of a single leaf. It isn't until the lightning starts to flash that everyone takes off for the waiting car. At home parents bundle their kids up in towels, and then everyone goes to the window to watch the rain stop and the sun come out again. I'll be the first one to tell you that under normal circumstances, Steptoe's art is not my style. He's a good guy and takes care with his art, but books like The Jones Family Express just don't do it for me. I've never really enjoyed paper collage. Is that a horrible thing to say? Even Eric Carle's work does nothing to make my heart go ah-pitter pat much faster than its usual gelatinous beat. But I didn't have to pick up "Rain Play", you know. It was sitting in my boss's office (he gets all the good stuff) in a pile of F & Gs and somehow, for some reason, I felt compelled to give it a glance. Maybe it was a sense memory thing or something. Maybe I just liked the colors used or the premise of the story, but something in me wanted to read and review this book. Flipping through it I was struck by one thing: Depth. Depth is hard when all you've got to work with is a bunch of practically two-dimensional paper pieces. Apparently someone failed to inform Mr. Steptoe of the fact, though, since he's constantly shifting our point of view, draw