The Weather Disaster by Matthew McElligott (review)

Weather is the focus of the current curricular unit at the Mad Scientist Academy, so Dr. Cosmic dons an inflatable weather balloon Sky Suit and heads into the atmosphere, reporting back on the air masses that generate the winds that determine his course, and on the formation of the clouds around him. His students (a mix of monsters that incudes Frankenstein and a werewolf) listen attentively, but the real test of their learning comes when CHAOS, his Cooling/Heating Airflow Operating System, goes on the fritz and the class has to figure out a fix. As half the students go off to the greenhouse (where it is now raining) and half to the pool (now frozen over in an ice storm), they apply what they’ve learned about the water cycle and the effect of heat on air pressure and precipitation to determine that they’ll just have to destroy CHAOS with a tornado, which they now know how to engineer. It’s pretty much impossible to discuss the Academy without referencing the venerable Magic School Bus and, fortunately, the MSA does not suffer by comparison. The graphic novel format, with tidy frames and several well-placed splash pages, is an excellent vehicle for organizing the lesson, and the orderliness of the visual presentation makes it easy to go back and review material. The send-ups on stock monsters are cleverly played, adding humor without sacrificing content. A page of climate and weather notes extends the information, and endpapers diagrams of the Sky Suit and CHAOS walk the line between science fact and fun. No need for MSA kids to take a field trip: what could be more interesting than school?