Lightning Bug Thunder - Hardcover

Burke, Katie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1552092712 ISBN 13: 9781552092712

Publisher: Firefly Books, 1998

Synopsis

Three little girls with a lightning bug in a jar make magic when their town suffers from a long dry spell

About this title

About the Author:

by Katie Burke and illustrated by Sheila McGraw

From Publishers Weekly:

Faltering rhythm and a strained rhyme scheme trip up Burke's debut book, set in a timeless, western town in the midst of a summer drought. "It hadn't been raining for one hundred days,/ People were sweltering in the sun's rays./ The trees looked so tired; the flowers seemed sad,/ They all needed water, and needed it bad." Two friends meet up with Kathryn Claire, who shows the girls her lightning bug in a jar. When her "pet" lights up after sunset, the girls decide that something is missing: "I think we can teach him so he'll understand/ That thunder and lightning should go hand-in-hand.' " The trio begins to jump, whoop and holler; they seem more concerned with creating thunder for the bug's benefit than with attracting rain for the town, yet the much-needed rain arrives. Adding substance to the slight verse, McGraw's (Love You Forever) full-spread paintings move from the realistic to the surrealistic, as the bug's light gives these sleepy, eerily deserted sidewalks?and the girls' faces?a luminous, golden glow and oversized raindrops fall from the sky. Her pictures of a town to rival Pleasantville begin with an aerial view, then plunge readers into the heat with a Hopper-esque view of a man hanging out of a corner hotel window to catch even a hint of a breeze. Unfortunately, McGraw's evocative images can't make up for a text with little spark. Ages 4-7.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Firefly Books
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1552092712
• ISBN 13: 9781552092712
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: McGraw Sheila