by Jean Little
First published 1990
The lights go out during a fierce thunderstorm. Thomas sits in the darkness with his grandfather and Ringo the cat, listening to rain pound the windows and thunder shake the house. Too early for bed but too dark to do much else, the boy and old man begin to talk. Without electric lights to distract them, they notice forgotten smells and sounds around the house. Their conversation flows from topic to topic, sparked by the strange intimacy of sitting together in the blackout. Thomas discovers things about his grandfather he never knew before. His grandfather learns new things about Thomas too. The storm rages outside with flashes of lightning briefly illuminating their faces, but inside they create their own warmth. What starts as an inconvenient power outage becomes something special between two generations.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, family-life, 20th-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, intergenerational
Library Binding · San Val