Featuring tidbits about snot clouds, half clouds, cloud dreams, when clouds bloom, why clouds can never die, and much more, the collection is fitting for dreamers young and old. The Book of Clouds is an informative, imaginative, whacky, and beautiful creation all rolled into one dazzling cloud formation. -- Ben Niespodziany * Neon Pajamas * Readers are in for a real treat as Latvian poet Juris Kronbergs, born in Sweden to a family of Latvian artists, has created an innovative selection of poetry – a mix of funny and playful poems that combine scientific fact and the very many meanings of the word ‘cloud’... It’s no mean feat to translate poetry and Māra Rozīte and Richard O’Brien have done an excellent job in making these poems accessible in English to a whole new audience. -- Outside In World * Outside In World * This cloudy compilation of poetry, art and a good pinch of humour by Latvian poet Kronbergs, appeals to the skygazer in us all. The twenty-five poems in this book tell a story of clouds; from how they move and travel, to how they shapeshift and of course how they transform weather. Interspersed throughout, Melece’s art reflects the comic nebulous nature of clouds. Impish faces anthropomorphise the cumulus characters in different skies, brought to life by a truly playful array of mixed media and watercolours. -- Children's Books Ireland/Inis Magazine * Children's Books Ireland * The delightful book explores its subject in a new and interesting way. Presented as an illustrated book of poetry, this collection is sure to inspire young readers (and writers) to think creatively about the natural world. Taking by turns, a humorous and fact based approach, these poems are excellently well crafted and present the many natures of clouds. -- Literature Works * Literature Works * This wonderful book about the magic of clouds is full of surprising and original poems, perfect for upper key stage two children either at school or at home. The poems are by turns bouncy, funny, quirky and thoughtful, and, being translated from Latvian, have a freshness that will appeal to those looking for something a bit different. -- BookTrust * Book Trust * In this delightful, whimsical and charmingly illustrated book, Juris Kronbergs explores the appearance and ephemeral nature of clouds in 26 poems. My favourites include one in which a cloud has a nightmare about evaporating, and one where real cloud names morph into descriptive ones and then into imagined ones. At the end of the book, the author gives ideas about how to write or illustrate a poem. The annotated illustrations are great fun and complement the poems, making the book one that you can look at for much longer than it takes to read the words. -- MetLink, Royal Meterological Society 'It has colour illustrations throughout and is unashamedly whimsical. A book to dip into when considering the weather as a theme for writing, perhaps, as one can have too many cloud-related poems at one sitting.' * NATE Teaching English Magazine *
Author Biography
Juris Kronbergs is a poet and translator. He was born in Sweden in 1946, to a family of Latvian artists. He studied Literature, Science, Nordic and Baltic languages at the University of Stockholm, and the Theory of Translation and 20th-century Poetry at the University of Cambridge, England. At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of 1990s he worked as a radio journalist for Radio Sweden, and as an interpreter for the Swedish parliament, government and the Nordic Council of Ministers. Juris served as a diplomat for ten years, Cultural Attaché at the Latvian Embassy in Sweden (1992-2002). He has been a guest lecturer at the University of Stockholm, University of Uppsala, several Swedish University Colleges, as well as Stanford University (USA), University of Toronto and the Foreign Service Institute (Washington DC). He has been the President of the Latvian P.E.N. centre, he is an honorary member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, a recipient of the Latvian Three Star order, the Swedish North Star order, and several scholarships and prizes for poetry and translation, including the prize for best poetry collection of the year in Latvia for his collections Wolf One-Eye (1997) and On the Balcony (2017). Sixteen collections of his poetry have been published, as well as poetry on CD (in Latvia and in Sweden). His output includes sixty books of translations, mostly Latvian poetry (but also prose) into Swedish, and Swedish literature into Latvian. His poetry have been translated into many languages: English, Swedish, German, French, Italian, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, Finnish, Estonian, Lithuanian, Chec, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Armenian, Greek, Slovenian, Catalan, Irish, Welsh, Chinese, Korean. In 2006, the British publisher ARC published a volume of the complete Wolf One-Eye collection in English (translated by Mara Rozitis). Anete Melece was born in Latvia in 1983. She studied visual communication at the Art Academy of Latvia (BA) and animation at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Art (MA). She is an illustrator, animator and graphic designer currently based in Zürich, Switzerland. Richard O’Brien is a poet, translator and academic based in Birmingham, UK.
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