The Weather Keeper [Forthcoming: September]

The Weather Keeper [Forthcoming: September]

$18.99

Written by Nelly Buchet
Illustrated by Elizabeth Haidle

Poetic, atmospheric, and inspired by a true story, this picture book about family, calling, and belonging tells of an Icelandic weather keeper in a world of ice, sea, and sky.

As the aurora borealis dances across the sky, a weather keeper crosses the icy plains to measure the temperatures at the edge of the world. Every three hours, she records movement and pressure, and if it's warmer or cooler, to keep the seafarers, farmers, and community safe. Just like her mother did. And her mother’s mother did before her, and just like the daughter telling this story will do, too, one day.

Structured like a ballad, this story celebrates a female lineage of weather keepers stationed on a farm where the extreme temperatures make their job impossible for machines to do. This is a world where humans are still needed and still very much one with the natural world around them. The Weather Keeper beautifully foregrounds the awe-inspiring force that is Nature and the strength of people who choose the life they wish to live, however unconventional or full of hardship it might seem to others.

ISBN: 978-1-59270-495-8

11 in (W) x 10.5 in (H) • 48 pages • Hardcover with Jacket

Ages: 4-8

Publication Date: September 8, 2026

OUT SEPT 8, 2026! Please note that due to shipping costs, all the books included in the same order as The Weather Keeper will ship together in September.

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REVIEWS

"The tale moves from a child’s admiring distance to a grown daughter’s return, circling back to the yellow lighthouse on the edge of the world where generations of women have read the sky. Buchet’s text is quiet and rhythmic, its brevity leaving enormous room for Haidle’s illustrations to carry the narrative. The Icelandic winter landscape is rendered in graphite grays and chalky whites, against which the yellow lighthouse and red barn blaze like signal fires. The northern lights, when they appear, unspool in electric yellow green across the dark sky in some of the book’s most arresting spreads. Color here is never decorative; it is information, mood, and meaning all at once, doing exactly what the weather keeper herself does—reading what the sky is saying. ... An exceptional collaboration—spare, artful, and genuinely unforgettable. (author’s and illustrator’s notes) (PIcture book. 4-8)" — Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW