Rain Day! This Beautiful Day by Richard Jackson

It's a drippy-droppy rainy gray day, with three kids and a dog listlessly hanging around inside.

But a jazzy song comes on the radio, and they all start moving to the beat.

Everyone dances --and spins,

And swings around.

One kid grabs a toy rabbit and gives it a twirl, and they all start stomping their feet. Now the energy is flowing, and it flows...

Out into the rain!

The kids, one with an umbrella, and their dog skip and jump in the puddles. It's not a bad day at all.

As one kid starts to whistle, they notice that the rain is slowing down and the clouds are floating away. Blue skies call for some cartwheeling across the green grass and playing hide-and-seek under a marigold sun.

What a great day!

High-fiving, and, yes, we're a-live-ing!

It's a perfect day, ending with drippy-droppy, slurpy popsicles, in Richard Jackson's This Beautiful Day (Atheneum Books, 2017). Jackson's evocative text captures a memorable moment in childhood, set off beautifully by artist Suzy Lee's delightful line drawings which have a movement of their own, while her gray and black color scheme shifts gently to black and blue and then to blue and white until the sun shows up to bring all the colors out to play along with the children. It's a wonderful day for childsplay. Publishers Weekly calls this one "a high-spirited hymn to childhood, an heir to earlier classics by Margaret Wise Brown and Ruth Krause."