Warren Faidley is an artist of capturing dangerous meteorological moments on camera. He has risked his life numerous times to bring the power of thunderstorms to a popular audience. His interest in thunderstorms began in his childhood when he rode his bike into a dust-devil. Stephen Kramer writes this biography of Warren Faidley, while trying to spread an awareness of the difficulties and dangers of storm-chasing. Faidley's adventures in storm chasing are used as a pretext to teach some scientific facts about weather phenomena such as tornadoes, lightning, and hurricanes.

All of the pictures were taken by Warren Faidley, and are unique in some way described by the text. Faidley's famous close-up of a lightning bolt includes the story of its capture. There are also snippets from Faidley's diary as a storm chaser that are intriguing from the point of view of someone who imagines storm-chasing might be an easy or fascinating task. Storm chasing can be as challenging as a game of chess. Faidley and Kramer bring the reality and hazards of this occupation to light. An attractive book for all ages because Faidley's photographs bring the experience of dangerous weather near. ( )

This book reads like an adventure novel. It introduces the main character, Warren Faidley,and explains how he became a storm chaser. Between these introductions, though, the author provides background information on relevant meteorological terms. Portions of the book detail specific experiences Faidley recalls from his early days in photographing lightening and the section on hurricanes is supplemented with Faidley's journal entries from the days before and after Hurricane Andrew. An important feature of the book, in my opinion, is that all of the photographs used were taken by Faidley. The photographs are spectacular and the text is hard-to-resist engaging; this book would be equally excellent for perusing the pictures or getting caught up in the excitement of Faidley's storm catcher stories. ( )