Zap! Clap! Boom! The Story of a Thunderstorm

On a warm, sunny day, three children and a trio of goats play on a hillside. As the day wears on, storm clouds gather, the sky darkens and the wind picks up, rustling the leaves. Eventually, the rain comes, pelting down on the group, but it is the zap of a lightning bolt and a clap of thunder that send the children and the goats scurrying to the safety of their respective homes. Finally, all is quiet, the grey clouds disappear – the storm is over. The children and their caprine friends emerge from their shelters to a “dazzling, sparkling, fresher” world where the raindrops on the trees and vines sparkle like diamonds.

The story, told in poem form, builds in anticipation as the storm approaches. Purdie Salas’s beautiful, lyrical language is a delight for the senses; one can almost feel the changes in atmospheric pressure, the wind and the driving rain, and hear the booming, rolling thunder. When the storm is over, one can almost smell the freshness of the earth after the rain and see the “diamond drops” on the foliage glistening in the sun.

MacKay’s “watery” collage-style illustrations are perfectly suited to the text. She captures the fun and playfulness of the children and the goats and the bucolic pastoral setting with bright colours, changing to a variety of blues during the storm, before once again lightening and brightening the colours when the sun comes out and the world is refreshed.

The last two pages of Zap! Clap! Boom! The Story of a Thunderstorm explain, in prose, how a thunderstorm forms and what causes lightning and thunder. A list of resources includes websites, time-lapse videos and books.

Beautifully done!