Flash, Crash, Rumble and Roll

If you need something to read while you ride out these April showers and scary thunderboomies (the ones I hear as I write this), the 8-year-old me provides you from his warped bookshelf Flash, Crash, Rumble and Roll. This was a book I must have read a hundred times before bed, whether it was raining or not, and it was one that taught me everything I know about thunderstorms and why they're too funny to be afraid of. Well, this, and the scientific fact that thunder is just the sky farting. That's just science.

Look at that cover (the old one I remember). Every page told a funny little story like that. Mom waits at the door of their 20-square-foot abode (attached to a lighthouse!) for blondie and pop who're racing in from a fishing trip gone wrong (everyone gets caught off guard in this book--no Weather Channel apps in those days). Clouds are always these menacing black (not grey...black) lumpy toasted marshmallows, and usually a dog or cat factors in somewhere too. The illustrations always told a story because there wasn't one (other than a storm blowing in, people running from it, and then going out). It was one of those 'educational books' about thunderstorms, as it taught you what to do and especially, what not to do, during one.

Did you know that lightning bolts can be over a mile long? Or that they may come from clouds that are ten miles high? Storms can be scary, but not if you know what causes them. Before the next thunderstorm, grab this book by veteran science team Franklyn Branley and True Kelley and learn what causes the flash, crash, rumble, and roll of thunderstorms!

Let's see, what did I learn? Lesson one, don't take a shower in a thunderstorm, lest you absorb any of those little lightning bolts on the medal shower head and handles. Lesson two, don't sit under a tree, lest lightning strikes it and sends it crashing down on top of you. Pretty dark right? Lesson three, cars are the safest place to be (it's not because of the rubber tires by the way). Lesson four, if you're on a bus coming back from camp during a storm, sing "Found a Peanut." Most importantly though, and I can't stress this enough, after you see a lightning flash, count the seconds until you hear the thunder (to find out how far away it is)... and if there is no time between flash and BOOM, then don't sit near the window and look for flashes!