In this quietly affecting story, award-winning author Karen Hesse and artist Jon J. Muth deftly capture the magnificence of a sudden rainstorm on a swelteringly hot day. Much more than a simple tale of weather, Come On, Rain! also portrays the tenderness of mother-daughter relations, the rhythms of urban society, and the power of nature to transform and reinvigorate all forms of life. The book s collaborators, more like alchemists, work wonders. Muth s sunbaked watercolors perfectly convey the washed-out, drought-stricken world, while Hesse s gripping narrative--a detailed prose poem written in the voice of the watchful, pigtailed Tessie--conveys undaunted hope and anticipation. Like a long-limbed little bird--all twiggy arms and legs--Tessie moves through the neighborhood, observing her Mamma, her friends, the skies, even the streets: Up and down the block, cats pant, heat wavers off tar patches in the broiling alleyway.... I stare out over rooftops, past chimneys, into the way off distance. And that s when I see it coming, clouds rolling in, gray clouds, bunched and bulging under a purple sky. A creeper of hope circles round my bones. Come on, rain! I whisper. As the downpour approaches, Tessie gathers her neighborhood friends for a romp in the raindrops. Their eager anticipation is matched by a rain shower so gigantic, it even makes their mothers run into the street. It s literally the stuff that dreams are made of--my own daughter dreamed of the delicious downpour the night we first read the book. (Click to see a sample spread. Text ©1999 by Karen Hesse. Illustrations ©1999 by Jon J. Muth. Reproduced with permission of Scholastic, Inc.) (Ages 5 and older) --Jean Lenihan