Picture Books - Sector 7

Sector 7 by David Wiesner 1999

This is the ultimate in genuine picture books. Without the use of words David Wiesner tells a fascinating tale of a young boy and cloud that begin an unusual and "forbidden" friendship. The young boy is on a class field trip when a young cloud takes a notion to "borrow" the young boy's mittens and other items. Soon the two are off together on an amazing adventure that takes the boy into the cloud's headquarters, Sector 7. There he and his cloud friend make some alterations to the shapes of clouds being produced, which makes everyone a bit happier except of course the cloud administration. Once discovered the two are scolded and the young boy is sent back to his class field trip via an escort, but some things have remained changed in Sector 7.

It is hard to really describe the story and give it the justice it deserves. Every time one looks at the pages one sees more and more of the story that wasn't there just a minute ago. The illustrations are truly worthy of the phrase " A picture is worth a thousand words". This is a great book for a number of kids. My favorite use to be handing it out to those students that had great imaginations and observation abilities. For kids that really like to write it works well in having them "write" the story they see with words. And, it worked really positively for students that were struggling with their reading or those with English as a second language. I would recommend it for kindergarten and up.

Other titles by Wiesner include:
The Loathsome Dragon
Tuesday
June 29, 1999
Free Fall
The Three Pigs
Hurricane
Gonna Roll the Bones