Whenever it rains in New York City, the park near our home looks like it has been given a new lease on life. The grass is greener, the leaves richer, the flowers brighter, the soil darker, and the animals friskier. So why is it when we wake up and see a dark overcast sky, our spirits sink and our energy sags?

Today, after reading through this nonfiction picture book filled with astonishing illustrations, we recognize that rain is a blessing, a relief, and a gift. We remember the scene in the movie First Knight when Lancelot tips the leaf so the rain water flows into Guinevere's mouth.

We want to drink rain from a leaf today ourselves.

April Pulley Sayre is an award-winning author of more than 60 books for children, including a number of photo-books like this one. She poetically charts the different stages of rainfall, paying special attention to the insects who take cover (a fly inside a pod, a firefly beneath a leaf) and the sounds rain makes when it waters, washes, and weighs down. When rain stops, drops of water cling to each other and show off their beauty and bounty before they dry in the sun.

Sayre feeds our spiritual sense of wonder with images and a minimum of words, though she does add some very informative explanations of rain's effects at the back of the book. So the next time it rains, pull this sense-luscious book down from the shelf and let it remind you of all the wonders that are happening in that moment.