Heat Wave

Heat Wave, written by Eileen Spinelli, illustrated by Bestsy Lewin

Picture book for children ages 6-10

3 out of 5 stars

As the city of Lumberville moves into a heat wave, the residents of town do everything they can think of to stay cool as they dream of rain and cooler days.

            This story was just alright. Everything about the illustrations would put Heat Wave on the best-sellers list, as it is a Caldecott Honor winner. The illustrations created by Lewin were done in brush and Sumi ink and watercolors. These illustrations represent the impressionism style, and making an impression is exactly what they do as they work with the text to make the reader really feel the heat and the feelings associated with it that the residents of Lumberville are feeling. Although the illustrations are stellar, the one thing that caused me to not enjoy the rest of the story would be the immense wordiness of the text. This picture book is twenty nine pages long, and on almost every page is a small paragraph of text that does not show me what is happening in the story, but tells me.  No plot really exists to move the story along, only the obvious reality that the characters in the story are not enjoying the heat wave. Also, so many different characters were discussed in the story, without any development, it was hard to keep them straight and understand the reason for them being mentioned. Although I enjoyed learning the ways that the residents of Lumberville tried to stay cool, this story was not one that I overly enjoyed reading.

            I wish I had the opportunity to read this story to a child as I would like to know whether or not they would have the same opinion of this story as I do. I think a small child would find Heat Wave immediately boring and want to move onto another book before it is finished. Due to the wordiness of this story, I would find it more fitting for older children, around the age of eight, to read or listen to this book. Due to my unawareness of the reactions children would have to this story, I would not know if I would consider trying to implement Heat Wave into my classroom. The only possibility that I can currently think of would be to read it during the hot first few days of school when the students are dreaming of the freedom that came with the hot summer days. This way, the students could relate to the characters and then write about what they did during their hot summer days.