Illustrated by Noah Klocek
Pixar Animation Studio Artist Showcase
Disney Press, 2015
Picture book

Sitting there, among the clouds, looking down and daydreaming is… a little cloudlet. Gale would like nothing more than to make one real cloud shape. But instead, she creates something different. Wait until all of Cloud Country finds out!

Find out more about the making of Cloud Country:
Read more about how Noah and I collaborated on the book on Kirby Larson’s blog here
and on my own blog here.

To see how Noah created the art for Cloud Country check out these video links:
The Making of Cloud Country, Part 1
The Making of Cloud Country, Part 2
The Making of Cloud Country, Part 3

Kirkus Reviews
Who makes those clouds in the sky, anyway? Writer Becker and Pixar art director and story conceptualist Klocek are pretty sure it’s a bunch of kids. Klocek’s artwork is top-shelf; all the action takes place in the air, so the views even on the endpapers are magnificent: a patchwork of fields, a meandering stream, birds in flight below readers. In the sky, adrift on clouds that their elders crafted, are cloudlets, little cloud-makers–to-be. First, they must pass their exams at the Formation School, their work to be judged by the Guardians. Young Gale has been neglecting her studies; she spends her time mooning, as it were, at the Earth and what is happening below. When she tries to conjure a cumulonimbus, it doesn’t tower and threaten, it looks like an elephant. Her cumulus looks like a tugboat, and others clouds look like dogs, frogs, and bears. Things look bleak for Gale until the Guardians applaud her efforts: “We are so glad to finally find you. We’ve been waiting for another Daydream Cloud for a long time.” Steering clear of mawkishness, Becker and Klocek dive straight into the imagination. Klocek’s cloud characters are marshmallow puffy with giant, waft-y hairdos; daubs of paint (presumably digital) in varying tones of slate blue, lavender, and gold, with genial, fat cheeks and expressive faces.