Book review: 'The Wild Weather Book'

As we enter the darker days of the year, one book may come in handy — “The Wild Weather Book” (Frances Lincoln, $14.95) by environmental educators Fiona Danks and Jo Schofield.

The subtitle of the 2013 book describes why parents might want to add it to their parenting library: “Loads of Things to Do Outdoors in Rain, Wind and Snow.”

There are 72 “projects,” from making an umbrella den ("find as many brightly colored umbrellas as you can” and “arrange them to make a fun, multicolored den to shelter in with your friends”) to wind wishes (“go out to the woods on a windy autumn day and see if you can catch a falling leaf in mid-air before it reaches the ground”) to snowy nights and lights (“drop night lights onto the snow and light them — once alight they will slowly sink down into the snow to create their own sheltered holes”).

Each project is ranked by one to three raindrops to indicate difficulty. The project titled Outdoor Adventures for the Bath Toys is supposed to be one of the most challenging, although to me letting toy ducks have a race across a muddy puddle after a rainstorm seems like work well worth it.