Calling the Wind: A Story of Healing and Hope

Based on the real-life creation of a “wind phone” through which mourning people might speak to departed loved ones, this thoughtful story by Ludwig (Brave Every Day) imagines a Japanese family grieving the death of the children’s mother. In loose, blue-tinged washes, Otoshi (Lunch Every Day) paints the family around a low table, all painfully aware of the empty place: “Memories rush in. Feelings too big to hold inside must find a way out.” A page turn reveals an old-fashioned telephone box. Here, a young child first places a call (“Are you there?” says the child into the receiver; “It’s me”). One by one, family members are introduced to the phone and, via age-appropriate variations, find solace speaking to the person they loved. Their conversations, shown in vignettes (“Can you tell Dad to get us a puppy?”), reveal the therapeutic effect of continuing to speak to those who have died in this account of a family’s mourning. Back matter contextualizes the wind phone, visited by thousands after Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)