John Rocco's Hurricane shares a preoccupation with two of his earlier picture books, Blackout and Blizzard: all reinforce the importance of neighborliness when a community is faced with the unexpected. And both Hurricane and Blizzard expertly nail a child's giddy anxiety--or is it anxious giddiness?--when confronted with extreme weather.
"This is my dock," begins Hurricane's young narrator. "Really, it's the neighborhood's dock, but nobody ever comes here except me." From his dock the boy passes the time fishing or studying the minnows below. One day he notes that "today feels different. The air is still, and the sound of hammering echoes down the street." At home, his father tells him that a hurricane is brewing. The next morning, the boy wakes to find a decimated neighborhood and an all-but-obliterated dock; he asks his neighbors for help fixing it, but they say they're too busy mending their damaged properties. After he gives them a hand, the boy sets out to rebuild his dock alone... until his neighbors' consciences get the better of them.
Caldecott Honoree Rocco captures the earth-battering elements at full roar, but Hurricane's showstopper is a shimmery two-page spread featuring an illustration touched by fantasy: on the night of the storm, the sleeping boy dreams of the sea creatures that might swim beneath his dock, dolphins and turtles where in true life minnows would be. Otherwise, Rocco keeps it real, from the front endpapers showing how hurricanes form to the back endpapers diagramming the parts of a dock. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author