Great Gusts: Winds of the World and the Science Behind Them

From Antarctica’s biting katabatic gusts to Hawai‘i’s sweet-smelling moani, discover fourteen winds of the world through poetry, scientific facts, and transporting illustrations.

In a dynamic collection of poems, Melanie Crowder and Megan Benedict explore the world’s winds, from Italy’s swaggering maestro to Libya’s fierce ghibli to Canada’s howling squamish. The poetic styles used reflect the characteristics and sometimes the location of each wind: Japan’s blustery oroshi is celebrated in haiku, for example, while the poem about Britain’s helm uses iambs in a nod toward the iambic pentameter of English sonnets. Sidebars relay the science behind how each wind forms, where it blows, and the weather systems it heralds, and the airy art from award-winning illustrator Khoa Le is overlaid with scientifically accurate wind lines that show the path of each gust. More meteorological details can be found in the back matter, which includes explorations of the origin of wind and how winds are named, a world map pinning the winds’ locations, a glossary, and books for further reading.

Melanie Crowder teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts and is the author of nine acclaimed books for young readers. Her titles have received numerous starred reviews, as well as national and state awards, including having been named a Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book of the Year, a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults selection, and a New York Public Library Best Book for Kids. Her historical novel in verse, Audacity, received a Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Blue Ribbon and the Jefferson Cup. She lives on the Colorado Front Range, where downslope chinook winds regularly visit her home.

Megan Benedict holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poetry has been published in Bravery magazine and the Hyacinth Review. Great Gusts is her first picture book. She writes poetry and fiction in the foothills of the Colorado Rocky Mountains and loves to chase the salty sea breezes of any coast she can get to.

Khoa Le is the author and illustrator of numerous picture books, including Sugar in Milk by Thrity Umrigar, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, and Miriam at the River by Jane Yolen, an Association of Jewish Libraries Sydney Taylor Honor Book. Khoa Le lives in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where she works to preserve her country’s ocean as a member of a local free-dive group.