We talk about books serving sometimes as windows and sometimes as mirrors. Depending on where a reader this lives, this book could do either. I’ve never lived in a place where there are tornadoes, or other wind storms so strong they destroy homes while families hide in storm cellars. For me, this book is a window, showing me in simple straightforward terms, from a child’s perspective, what that might be like. For students who may have experienced such things, it may serve as a mirror, validating their own experiences, letting them know they’re not alone. The book offers a sense of hope in the face of devestation: when the family rise from the cellar to find their home destroyed, they are still able to find enough in the rubble to fix themselves a meal and wash dishes and blow bubbles. Despite the somber story, it ends with laughter: “Those laughs didn’t change anything. They made no difference. Those laughs changed everything. They made all the difference in the world.” It’s a powerful book.

It manages to tick the boxes for early readers with rhythm and rhyme and short sentences and pictures to support the text, while still having a story to it, and one that young children can relate to. The main character is told to get ready for bed by a mom who pleads with him to avoid “dino-drama,” but the illustrations show the reader that after bath time, when he puts on his dinosaur bathrobe, his imagination takes over and he sees himself as a dinosaur who has a terrible time finding suitable pajamas. He joyfully decides he should be wild and free and naked until mom yells, “No more play time! That is it!” and he decides (now back to being a boy in a dino-robe instead of an actual dinosaur) that he better find some clothes that fit. Highly relatable for both parents and children.

It begins with a girl’s description of her Grana as one who once told the best stories, but who is now too weak to tell stories, and Grana’s question that if we can touch the moon, what is impossible. At bedtime the girl ponders Grana’s question as she gazes at the moon and feels compelled to pursue the impossible. What follows is a fanciful adventure in which she launches herself from her bed into the night sky and pursues several adventures with the characters of the constellations on her way to try to touch the moon. She misses her mark, and finds herself falling sleepily back to earth, now with stories of her own to tell, along with the confidence to continue to pursue the impossible. The illustrations are beautiful and suit the imaginative nature of the tale.