I Love the Rain

by Margaret Park Bridges, Christine Davenier (Illustrator)

Molly hates rainy days. The gray sky, the soggy wait for the school bus, they seem to make everyone grumpy. Everyone except her friend Sophie, who shows Molly the magic she has been missing. The simple, poetic language in this lovely book takes readers on a journeyfrom the girls' first tentative steps into the drizzle to a rain-drenched romp in a puddle. The lyrical text is perfectly matched by the joyful watercolor paintings, which capture not only the color and beauty of a rainy day, but the warm interactions of the girls' blossoming friendship. An exuberant homage to finding pleasure where it's unexpected, the power of imagination, and the joys of friendship, I Love the Rain will have readers singing, "Sun, sun, go away!"

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Storytime, Friendship

32 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2005

Reviews

[eRin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Molly hates the rain. But her best friend Sophie does not...and Sophie is about to show Molly that the rain is not actually depressing, it's fantastic. This is an adorable picture book that demonstrates imagination and friendship and carefree youth. A puddle isn't just a puddle; it's a face with raindrop freckles. Slowly over the course of the book Molly comes to see that the rain isn't a pain, it's great and even better than "Rain rain go way" is "Sun sun go away." I really liked the watercolor illustrations as well.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hate the rain! No, for reals I do, then I had to do the voice over for the nook version and now I LOVE THE RAIN! Just kidding. But I do love this book and the illustrations are beautiful. It's a great story for kids about turning a dislike into a like and an imaginative and fun playtime. A story about turning the frown upside down and exercising positive creativity. It's a lovely story and good for many ages. Nice gift for kids/parents/caretakers who live in rainy cities too!

[Nichole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book. It is a good way to show your students different point of views. I would read it to younger elementary students, it could also be used in free read, or a lesson about vocabulary, or good word choice in student writing. There are good descriptive words in the book.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Molly has a bad case of the gloomy woomies until her friend Sophie shows her the upside of down and all the good things about the rain. Love it! Would be cute for a weather-themed preschool storytime.

[Hannah Hackbarth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here is a book I read to my daughter's tonight. It's from my close friend Annie, who happens to live in the rainy city of Portland. I love this book...great analogies.

[Letitia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was such an adorable book about changing your perspective!

[Daniel Cortez · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I Love the Rain” by Margaret Park Bridges is an invigorating children’s book about turning a bad situation into a good one. The narrator is sad because it is raining and she has her umbrella up because she doesn’t want to get wet. The story starts off with her saying, “I hate the rain!” Then her friend Sophie says it’s so much fun to get wet. She explains why it’s fun to be in the rain and how a rainy day can actually provide a lot of entertainment if you have a good imagination. The narrator gets happier and happier until she herself is playing with Sophie out in the rain. When her mom tells her to watch out for a puddle so she doesn’t get wet, she says, “What’s so great about being dry?” The book then ends in a similar fashion to the way it began, but this time the narrator says, “I love the rain!”

This book has a great lesson for children: you can always make something good about a bad situation. This is an important lesson for children to learn; with the right amount of imagination, they can turn anything into a game or into something entertaining. The rain drops heard on the roof could be tap dancers putting on a show. The rain drops on a car window are racing down to get to the bottom. It can be fun to splash around in puddles and slide along the water on the ground. Children can apply this to other sad situations or boring situations. It’s important to encourage the imagination of a child!

The artwork of this book really does a good job at bringing childhood concepts to life. When I was younger, I would always imagine that the rain drops on the window were racing to the bottom, so it was cool to see each drop look like a race car speeding towards the finish line. It was also neat to see a bunch of different people dancing on top of the bus, since that’s what rain drops sound like on the roof of a vehicle. The drawings were also very happy and made me feel like going out and playing in the rain.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Margaret Park Bridges, I Love the Rain (Chronicle, 2005)

I Love the Rain is the kind of kids' book I stumble upon all too rarely, and the kind (doesn't it always work this way?) I think should be the most common: this is a book about possibilities. It's about imagination and playing pretend and all those things kids do when they're faced with some minor misfortune and need to find a way to turn it into something useful, or at least pleasurable. You don't like the rain? Make it into something else. It's still rain, but all the sudden it's a great deal more fun. I'm not sure whether it's just a positive side effect or whether it happens by definition, but when you stumble upon this sort of book, the sort that's about imagination and playing let's pretend, you always find great language, stuff that borders on the poetic, stuff that's rooted in the image. I've read a lot of kids' books recently, and I think that, from the standpoint of the writing alone, this may be the best of them I've run across since Randall Jarrell's The Bat-Poet (which I found in 1999). Definitely one for the kids' bookshelf. ****

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book follows two girls as it rains outside. At first, one girl is unhappy because of the rain, but her friend helps her to see the fun that comes with rain. Throughout the story, the girls compare the rain with many things and use their imagination and pretend the rain is doing different things. This book would be a great read-aloud for children around kindergarten and also one for children to try independent reading with as they get a little older. With this book, you can also have children consider the similes throughout the book and to think about what those comparisons are saying about the rain.

[Miss Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A young girl and her friend are trudging home on a rainy day. One of the girl's hates getting wet but the other enjoys the adventure of the rain. Can they both have a good time? Preschool and up.

[Chelsea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give it 3 1/2 stars. The illustrations are colorful and the book is a kind of celebration for rain. Two friends share a special moment on a rainy day.

[Goshen PL Childrens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read at Storytime on March 21st
Theme: Spring Weather

[Afoma (Reading Middle Grade) · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVE this one! A little girl’s friend helps her discover the beauty of a rainy day ❤️

[沈沈 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this bookto look at and read with my 3-year-old. The pictures are beautifully done and I am smiling by the end.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very cute story about a girl who thinks she hates the rain until her friend shows her the magic of rain.

[Josephine Burks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this story and the water color pictures are beautiful!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used this book in preschool storytime, and, while I liked it, it was not a big hit. I think my group may have been a little too young to really understand the premise - that imagination and a friend turns a rain storm into something more. Perhaps the urban setting also made it a little less relatable for kids.

[Chiara · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Power of Imagination.

Cute little story about children's imagination on a rainy day.

The text is almost poetic, near the end.

It's a fast read. Suitable for grades 1-2.

[Latrice Pearl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute story about making a rainy day fun!

[Jonabelle Lozada]

i lovee it

[Don Gubler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the rain even more now.

[thi · Rating 4 out of 5]

..

[Mrs Heet -Librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a cute book, but I think it would be better suited for preschool/kindergarten aged children, not the toddlers that I was hoping to use it with.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The protagonist changes her attitude of hating the rain to loving the rain, thanks to a friend helping her see it from a fresh perspective.

[Christine Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The illustrations are so dynamic and fit the tone of the book perfectly. I love picture books because it's a wonderful medium, and there are so many ways to make a great one like this.

[Hope Garland]

This story is about a little girl named Molly getting her perspective changed by her best friend, Sophie. Molly and Sophie are on the way home from school and Molly is whining about the rain when Sophie begins to show her that if she looks at the rain just a little bit differently, it can be great. Suddenly, the annoying tapping sound of the rain on the roof of the school bus is a team of tap dancers putting on a show, and so on. Sophie teaches Molly that you can make anything more fun if you just look at it in a creative way. I liked how this book teaches children how to change their perspective in a simple, easy to understand way. I would recommend this book for young readers.

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

My mud loving kids really enjoyed this book! At 2 and 4 they're really starting to get into pretending and using their imaginations so this book was a lot of fun. Two friends wait in the rain for the bus. One girl says she hates the rain, the other explains why she loves rain so much. By the end, the first girl has learned to see in a different way and decides it's pretty fun after all.

[Laura O · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good reading for a toddler!

This book is great for toddlers! It really gets the my girl asking questions about what's so great about rain. It creates and opportunity to get rid of the fear of a raining night.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one! The imagination of little Sophie is fantastic, and I love how her enthusuasm and creativity spreads itself around. The illustrations are soft and perfectly match up to the story about a rainy day. Nicely done!

[Edna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young girl's creative imagination and optomistic personality is ignited by the wetness and sounds of rain.