Product Description

Only the person who gave us Tuesday could have devised this fantastic tale, which begins with a school trip to the Empire State Building. There a boy makes friends with a mischievous little cloud, who whisks him away to the Cloud Dispatch Center for Sector 7 (the region that includes New York City). The clouds are bored with their everyday shapes, so the boy obligingly starts to sketch some new ones. . . . The wordless yet eloquent account of this unparalleled adventure is a funny, touching story about art, friendship, and the weather, as well as a visual tour de force.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #60991 in Books
• Published on: 1999-08-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 48 pages

From Amazon.com
In another wondrous, wordless picture book by Caldecott Medal winner David Wiesner (Tuesday and June 29, 1999), a class visiting the Empire State Building finds complete cloud cover and no visibility. One boy makes friends with a cloud (identifiable in the mists by the red mittens, hat, and scarf and swipes from the boy), and goes AWOL on a wonderful adventure. The cloud whisks him away to the "Sector 7" floating cloud factory, a bizarre sky station that looks like a Victorian design for a submarine.

Hiding behind his new cumulonimbus friend, the boy enters an area resembling Grand Central Station (complete with "Arrivals" and "Departures" boards) and watches officious human types in uniform giving the clouds their weather assignments. When the clouds complain to the boy that their assigned shapes are boring, he, a talented artist, creates new blueprints for them. The stuffy grownups are furious when clouds start emerging in the shape of fantastic fish; they shout at the clouds, tear up the new designs, and escort the boy back to his school group. But the revolt of the clouds is unstoppable now, and in the last few pages the skies over Manhattan suddenly get a lot more interesting. (Click to see a sample spread. Copyright 1999 by David Wiesner. With permission of Clarion Books.) (Ages 2 to 8) --Richard Farr

From Publishers Weekly
Caldecott Medalist Wiesner (Tuesday) again takes to the air, with watercolors that render words superfluous. Here, a boy on a class trip to the Empire State Building discovers that the landmark, enveloped by fog, is nonetheless a gateway to incredible vistas indeed. The boy is soon befriended by a jolly cloud that whisks him off to a sort of Grand Central in the sky, which functions as headquarters for clouds in the metro areaASector 7. Giant tubes funnel the clouds in and out of a designated waiting area; boards overhead track arrivals and departures (e.g., "Altocumulus" Dep. 1:03, Tube 21W). Uniformed bureaucrats keep their eyes on the skies in various locations (Hoboken, Brooklyn, Manhattan, etc.) by means of TV-type monitors, and issue each departing cloud an architectural-type drawing with precisely delineated shapes and measurements to which it must conform. The complex is rendered with the hard edges and clear definition of ultra-realism, a style that serves as an effective foil for both the wispy clouds and the story's fantastical premise. Magnificent as the "Cloud Dispatch Center" is, it is only the beginning. For the boy, having discerned the clouds' dissatisfaction with their pedestrian assignments, alters the drawings and specs so that the clouds begin to transform into blowfish, angel fish and octopus shapes. Even after the unamused bureaucrats discover his creations and summarily return him by cloud taxi to his classmates, the boy's influence persists: an elaborate tropical-sea-in-the-sky astonishes his friends (and strangers on the street), draws fish to the surface of the river, and has the city's indoors cats pawing at their windowpanes in excitement. Starting from a simple, almost obvious ideaAonce one has thought of itAWiesner offers up an ingenious world of nearly unlimited possibilities. His paintings, at once highly playful and purely pristine, contain such a wealth of details that they reveal new discoveries even after repeated examinations. The frame-within-a-frame that depicts the boy's first glimpse of the Sector 7 complex, for instance, is a mesmerizing study of the variegated colors and textures of clouds. The work as a whole is an inspired embodiment of what seems to be this artist's approach to story and vision: the more you look, the more there is to see. Ages 5-up.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 4-A playful mist transports a schoolboy from the observation deck of the Empire State Building to a colossal cloud factory. Intricate watercolors convey the wonder and whimsy of this magical adventure. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A Great First Book
Sector 7 is a great first book. Since it has essentially no words and requires none to be enjoyed, the book can be "read" and understood by very young children. We all see the clouds in the sky and who hasn't seen something in their shapes?

This book ranks with Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are." To get a child started on the road to reading and loving it, Sector 7 can be enjoyed alone, with a friend or parent.

Every day should be a cloudy day like this one...
Of all the children's books I have read, this one stands out as my all time favorite. I love to write, and treasure the words in good stories, but Sector 7 needs no words to be understood. All you have to do is read the pictures, and let your imagination do the rest.

A little boy with artistic talent draws in the fog on the window of the schoolbus that is taking his class on a field trip to the Empire State Building. When the children arrive, they rush to the top only to find that it is completely cloudy. There is zero visibility, nothing but clouds. This makes it easy for one friendly cloud to make friends with the boy, and whisk him away to Sector 7, a cloud factory in the sky. The clouds are bored with their round and blobby shapes, so the boy puts his talent to work to draw plans for new cloud shapes. The clouds begin to reinvent themselves into interesting new forms. It doesn't take long before the powers that be take notice, and search for the culprit. The boy is immediately caught and sent back to join his class. You'd think it would end there, but his precocious little cloud friends has other plans. The ending of this book is delightful, as the boy begins to see the difference he made take hold in the sky. My favorite illustration is the boy asleep at the end. Even I , as an adult, think that sleeping on a cloud would be heavenly.

This book is magical for children and adults alike. If you are familiar with David Wiesner's work or not, Sector 7 is a special treat.

Gorgeous book
The graphics are incredible in this book. I have 3 children ages 7, 5 and 5 and they were absolutely enchanted with this book as was I. Highly recommend this book for all ages.