Children's books and activities

Weather

Do you know any kids who are fascinated by tornadoes and hurricanes and the science of measuring and predicting weather patterns? We've gathered up a great collection of books, activities, apps, and websites for learning all about weather.

Try pairing fiction with nonfiction books and exploring different genres (like poetry and biographies) and formats (like graphic novels and audio books). You'll be creating your own "text sets" — collections of texts focused on a specific topic, such as weather. Reading widely in this way helps children build background knowledge, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.

You might also want to explore our free toolkit: Weather Wonders.

Weather

Great Fiction & Nonfiction Books

Age Level: 3-6 years old

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All the Water in the World

By: George Ella Lyon

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Nonfiction

Rich, rhythmic language combines with lush illustration to poetically describe the water cycle...

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illustrated cover of "Clouds" showing horseback riders under a cloudy blue sky

Clouds

By: Anne Rockwell

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Nonfiction

Learn about 10 different types of clouds — cirrus, stratus, and cumulus — as well as...

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cover of "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" showing man with umbrella catching a meatball falling from a cloud

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

By: Judi Barrett

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Fiction

Residents of Chewandswallow were accustomed to their predictable weather which kept them in...

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Come On, Rain

By: Karen Hesse

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Tessie, the child narrator, is the first to see the long-awaited rain clouds form. She and her...

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Finn Throws a Fit

By: David Elliott

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Young Finn doesn't like anything on this particular day. When offered something he normally likes,...

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Hurricane!

By: Jonathan London

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Fiction

Told from the perspective of a boy who witnesses the sky growing ominously purple and rushes to...

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Kate, Who Tamed the Wind

By: Liz Garton Scanlon

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Fiction

A wild wind blows on the tippy-top of a steep hill, turning everything upside down for the man...

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illustrated cover of "Kite Flying" showing child running with a dragon kite

Kite Flying

By: Grace Lin

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Fiction

The young narrator describes how she and her family each contribute to a handsome kite which...

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Like a Windy Day

By: Frank Asch, Devin Asch

Age Level: 3-6 years old

A child imagines being like the wind: playing with hats and leaves, zooming and racing...

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cover of "On the Same Day in March" showing a snow scene, a desert scene, and a tropical scene

On the Same Day in March

By: Marilyn Singer

Age Level: 3-6 years old

On the same day that it's icy cold in the Artic, it's foggy in Louisiana, sunny in Barbados, and...

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Otis and the Tornado

By: Loren Long

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Otis and his farm friends are enjoying a summer's day playing their favorite game, follow-the-...

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Rain

By: Manya Stojic

Age Level: 3-6 years old

When rain comes to the parched African savanna, the animals use all their senses to track the...

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Rain Play

By: Cynthia Cotten

Age Level: 3-6 years old

What is summer without a rainstorm? Alliterative language and richly textured collages create a day...

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Sun

By: Sam Usher

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Fiction

This rhyming read-aloud celebrates how we’re all connected under the sun. As readers are...

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Thanking the Moon

By: Grace Lin

Age Level: 3-6 years old

As they did for the Lunar New Year, each family member contributes to the preparations for the mid-...

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The Blizzard

By: Betty Ren Wright

Age Level: 3-6 years old

This picture book has the warmth and appeal of a favorite family reminiscence. The simple story...

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The Snowy Day

By: Ezra Jack Keats

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Fiction

No book has captured the magic and sense of possibility of the first snowfall better than The...

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The Weather Girls

By: Aki

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Sixteen busy girls introduce readers to the different weather associated with the seasons as...

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This Beautiful Day

By: Richard Jackson

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Fiction

Filled with motion and rhythm, this celebration of rain follows three children as they start a...

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cover of "Thundercake" showing woman and child in bonnets point at sky

Thunder Cake

By: Patricia Polacco

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Many children are frightened by the noise of a storm. Here, a grandmother’s caring and her stories...

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Waiting Out the Storm

By: JoAnn Early Macken

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Wind whistles in the treetops, thunder rumbles, and lightning flashes and dashes between raindrops...

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Water Is Water

By: Miranda Paul

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Nonfiction

Lyrical language and handsome, realistic watercolors present water in its many forms, from...

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Watersong

By: Tim McCanna

Age Level: 3-6 years old

In onomatopoeia, the author takes the reader on a wonderful journey as a fox seeks shelter from...

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cover of "Weather: Poems for All Seasons" showing kids in a hot air balloon

Weather: Poems for All Seasons

By: Lee Bennett Hopkins

Age Level: 3-6 years old

From the catchy nonsense of X. J. Kennedy's 'Snowflake Souffle' to the simple, surprising imagery...

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Wild Weather

By: Katharine Kenah

Age Level: 3-6 years old

The Wild Weather Extreme Reader introduces fascinating facts about some of the fiercest weather...

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Wolf in the Snow

By: Matthew Cordell

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Fiction

A girl is lost in a snowstorm. A wolf cub is lost, too. How will they find their way home?...

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Age Level: 6-9 years old

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A Drop of Water

By: Walter Wick

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Nonfiction

Filled with stop-action and close-up photography, this book features images like a single...

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Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain

By: Verna Aardema

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Fiction

The tale of herdsman Ki-pat is set on a dry African plain and is told in the familiar cadence of...

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cover of "Down Comes the Rain" showing people with umbrellas in the rain

Down Comes the Rain

By: Franklyn Branley

Age Level: 6-9 years old

After rain comes down, the sun comes out and dries the puddles. But the water isn't gone. The heat...

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Flash, Crash, Rumble, and Roll

By: Franklyn Branley

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Did you know that lightning bolts can be over a mile long? Or that they may come from clouds that...

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Heat Wave

By: Eileen Spinelli

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Fiction

The mercury is climbing in Lumberville, and the folks are doing everything they can to keep cool...

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cover of "How Ben Frankling Stole the Lightning" showing Ben Franklin hanging from a lightning bolt

How Ben Franklin Stole the Lightning

By: Rosalyn Schanzer

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Benjamin Franklin was amazing. He was a musician, a printer, a cartoonist, a shopkeeper, an...

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Hurricane

By: David Wiesner

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Fiction

As the sky grays and the leaves swirl by in a "green blizzard," two young boys and...

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Hurricanes

By: Seymour Simon

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Hurricanes, their origin and their destructive power (as well as their relatives, the tropical...

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Hurricanes

By: Gail Gibbons

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Nonfiction

Imagine a force that can toss boats around like toys, wash away bridges, and create waves as...

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illustrated cover of "I Face the Wind" showing young child holding a kite

I Face the Wind

By: Vicki Cobb

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Children are encouraged to observe as experiment as they learn about wind and air as well as...

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If You Lived Here: Houses of the World

By: Giles Laroche

Age Level: 6-9 years old

People all around have homes in which to live, but not all of them look alike. Dwellings old and...

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Three people holding umbrellas in the rain surrounded by flowers

It's Raining

By: Gail Gibbons

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Nonfiction

Water is essential for all life on earth. In the author/illustrator's signature style, the water...

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Kissimmee Pete and the Hurricane

By: Jan Day

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Fiction

Kissimmee Pete, the cracker cow hunter, is back for another wild adventure. After rounding up a...

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Look at the Weather

By: Britta Teckentrup

Age Level: 6-9 years old

This immersive nonfiction title is just as much about feelings about the weather as it is about...

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Magic School Bus Inside a Hurricane

By: Joanna Cole

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Fiction

Count on Ms. Frizzle to teach anything but an ordinary lesson on meteorology. Flying through the...

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images of extreme weather situations

National Geographic Kids Everything Weather

By: Kathy Furgang

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Weather can be wild, freaky, and fascinating! Powerful twisters roar through homes; earthquakes...

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Pattan's Pumpkin: A Traditional Flood Story from Southern India

By: Chitra Soundar

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Fiction

In this retelling of the flood myth, young Pattan's amazing pumpkin grows big enough to save the...

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Sector 7

By: David Wiesner

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Wondrous things happen in the skies above Manhattan in this wordless book that explores what...

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Snow Birds

By: Kirsten Hall

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Nonfiction

Discover birds who survive winter against all odds! You’ve heard of birds who migrate to warmer...

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Snow Is Falling

By: Franklyn Branley

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Snow is magical and beautiful and sometimes even dangerous. Through both observation and...

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Snowflake Bentley

By: Jacqueline Martin Briggs

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Strong lines and narrative combine in this picture book biography of the Vermonter who figured...

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cover of "The Big Storm" showing a funnel cloud

The Big Storm

By: Bruce Hiscock

Age Level: 6-9 years old

On the last day of March in 1982 a storm swept off the Pacific coast. Over the next six days the...

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cover of "The Boy Who Harnesses the Wind" sowing boy and a windmill

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

By: William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer

Age Level: 6-9 years old

When fourteen-year-old William Kamkwamba's Malawi village was hit by a drought, everyone's crops...

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The Fog

By: Kyo Maclear

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Fiction

When a fog rolls into Icyland, it prevents Warble, a small yellow warbler, from enjoying his...

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illustrated cover of "The Kid's Book of Weather Forecasting" showing two children and various weather items

The Kid's Book of Weather Forecasting

By: Mark Breen, Kathleen Friestad

Age Level: 6-9 years old

In this hands-on science book, kids learn how to make a barometer, record their observations in...

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The Legend of Lightning and Thunder

By: Paula Ikuutaq Rumbolt

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Orphaned siblings could travel no farther without food and so while camp folk were distracted, the...

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The Weather's Bet

By: Ed Young

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Fiction

In the retelling of this Aesop fable, the wind, rain, and sun compete to make a shepherd take...

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The Wild Weather Book

By: Fiona Danks

Age Level: 6-9 years old

There's always something to do outside regardless of the weather. A range of activities are...

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Thunder Rose

By: Jerdine Nolan

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Fiction

In this tall tale, Thunder Rose vows to grow up to be more than just big and strong,...

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Tornado! The Story Behind these Twisting, Turning, Spinning and Spiraling Storms

By: Judith Fradin

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Sophisticated readers curious about weather science will be riveted by this highly illustrated,...

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Tornadoes

By: Seymour Simon

Age Level: 6-9 years old

One of nature’s most volatile weather events is the tornado. In this updated edition, the author...

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cover of "Weather" showing a cloudy blue sky

Weather

By: Seymour Simon

Age Level: 6-9 years old

What causes the weather and its patterns? How do we measure weather? All your meteorological...

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cover of "Weather words and what they mean" showing a sun, a storm cloud, and snow

Weather Words and What They Mean

By: Gail Gibbons

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Award-winning nonfiction writer Gibbons clearly explains and illustrates four big weather...

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What Will the Weather Be?

By: Lynda DeWitt

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Will it be warm or cold? Should we wear shorts or pants? Shoes or boots? Read and find out why the...

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Age Level: 9-12 years old

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I, Matthew Henson: Polar Explorer

By: Carole Boston Weatherford

Age Level: 9-12 years old

Nonfiction

Matthew Henson, an African American explorer, accompanied Robert Peary to the North Pole where...

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One Well: The Story of Water on Earth

By: Rochelle Strauss

Age Level: 9-12 years old

Nonfiction

All water is connected. Every raindrop, lake, underground river and glacier is part of a single...

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