I give this book a 4.5. I love that it combines poetry, interesting facts, and beautiful illustrations. Everything you want in a childrens nonfiction book. It's always a nice surprise when there are facts that I'm not familiar with, and I appreciated the glossary of terms at the end to refresh my memory. I gave it a 4.5 because I was not a fan of some of the poetry. It just didn't seem to fit the vibe of the rainbow and/or illustration. Otherwise, a fantastic book that I will be adding to our collection!

A slightly awkward collection of poetry, concerning all things rainbow – the weird rainbow you see around the shadow of your plane if it's all at just the right angle above the clouds – a kind of Brocken spectre, fact fans; rainbow-coloured birds and bugs and mountains; and even a nebula in Orion. The thing is some of the subjects are rather on the esoteric side, and so the assumption has to be the verses are made to order, specifically for this – and they don't always come out the success they might have been had the natural order for a verse done naturally about a naturally appealing topic been there.

None are dreadful, mind – and certainly there are strong contenders for fine work, where rhymes sneak up on you and present themselves in all-ages-friendly fashion. One piece about a moonbow over the Zambezi has a very nice structure (sort of, but not quite, a villanelle), and generally they're of a 'perfectly-alright' standard. I liked the way the book snuck the science and the background information into sidebars, allowing the verse and the accompanying artwork to be enjoyed as best and interruption-free as they could. Other creatives with text doing two things at once could learn from this approach.

So all told, while this doesn't quite convince that the rainbow is the heaven-sent inspiration for all of this, it does have a variety in subject that might appeal. And while there's never a sense of this wasting your time, it's not the proverbial pot of gold at the end of, er, itself. Three and a half stars.

Netgalley ARC - fantastic illustrations with a bright, colorful theme. I like the animal illustrations best. As often happens with collections from a variety of authors, some of the contributions are better than others.

The book was beautifully written. Overall, the book was well written and I did really enjoy it. Thank you for this advance reading copy!

Stories of Rainbows as told by Poems.
Smooth moving Poems for each of the rainbow locations.
Each location also has the history and backstory. So not only do you get a lovely poem you also learn something about that location. Nice job to the author. The Illustration's make the flow and story even better.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.