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Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite
The Man Who Stole the Clouds is a children's fantasy and science fiction story written by Kai Culmsee Ianssen and illustrated by Chrissie Ianssen. There's something scary and destructive roaming around the small farming community of Hillby. It's a giant machine that is thirty stories high and operated by a millionaire whose inventions have made him rich. This machine is the Cloud Snatcher. It grabs clouds and turns them into water, but afterwards it spews out the toxic waste and poisons that are the byproducts of the process. Desmond Zam is a farmer who's planted some very special heirloom seeds that were passed down in his family. They've grown into amazingly huge and red tomatoes, but they were damaged irreparably overnight by the toxic fumes of the Cloud Snatcher. Each night the machine visits Hillby and farmers lose their buildings, cattle and their crops, but no one will help them. Worse yet, this is only a test, and other Cloud Snatchers are scheduled to be constructed.
Kai Culmsee Ianssen's children's fantasy and science fiction story, The Man Who Stole the Clouds, seemed eerily, and sadly, all too much like nonfiction as I began to read it. Ianssen paints an idyllic pastoral picture that is threatened by the actions of one man with the political power and economic resources to harm countless lives and destroy the environment. Chrissie Ianssen's illustrations are a marvelous mix of pen and ink and watercolor that work so well with the story. I loved the strategy that the children of Hillby come up with to battle the mean man on his own terms, and the general turn of the story from hopelessness to hope. The Man Who Stole the Clouds is highly recommended.
