A newspaper story about an Iceland farmer became a children's book

A 2021 New York Times article about a weather keeper in Iceland has become a children's book. The article profiled Marsibil Erlendsdottir, a farmer who staffed one of 71 manned weather stations across the country, checking her instruments every three hours day and night and sending the readings to Reykjavik. Nelly Buchet's mother emailed her the piece while Buchet was living in "a really small apartment, in a very small room, in a very big city." She surprised herself. "I surprised myself by being envious of this woman who lives in super harsh conditions in Iceland," she says. The result is The Weather Keeper, told by a daughter deciding whether to return home. Illustrator Elizabeth Haidle had just bought a one-way ticket to Iceland, so she went and studied the sky in person. She used diagonal slashes across the page to show rain in one corner and sun in another, both at once.