Former Children’s Laureate Quentin Blake team up for this hugely original weather-based fantasy. It’s a hot, hot summer Thursday when Harry hears the rag-and-bone man calling out “Rainy numbers up. Any thunder up?” Not knowing what any of it might mean, Harry follows the cart through the rain door and out into the strange world of weather. Quentin Blake makes hot and cold weather beautiful and tangible.
This is a young boy's fantastic and fantastical trip of discovery beyond the real world...with a horn that goes GAHOOGA! One hot summer Thursday, Harry meets the rag-and-bone man and his horse, and follows them through the rain door - to a whole other world behind the weather. When Harry hears a lion roar, he wants to get home as fast as he can...but that turns out to be easier said than done. After an exciting adventure involving a home-made dinosaur and a sky-high flight through the mother of all thunderstorms, will Harry manage to escape the thundering lion and get back home?
Russell Hoban was born in Pennsylvania, USA. His parents were Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine; his father was the advertising manager of a Jewish newspaper as well as a dram guild director. Russell was thus exposed to the arts early on, and became interested in writing at an early age, winning prizes for his stories and poems during his school years.
As an adult
Russell served in the US Infantry during WWII. For a time he taught art in New York and Connecticut. He then worked as a freelance illustrator and an advertising copywriter. He began publishing children's books in 1958, and since then has published more than fifty. His picture book The Sea-Thing Child, illustrated by Patrick Benson, was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Russell passed away at the age of 86 in 2011.
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