When a bad storm tears a little girl’s favorite branch off a tree, she insists on keeping it. To her mother it’s “just a branch” but to the girl it was “my castle, my spy base, my ship … ” Only her next-door neighbor, Mr. Frank, understands the girl’s dismay. “That branch is full of potential!” he tells her. Together they work on a project in his workshop—drawing up plans, measuring, sawing, drying, waiting, planning, drilling, varnishing—until the branch has been transformed into a bit of its former glory, as a swing. The hard work it takes to create the swing is realistically portrayed visually in a series of appealing vignettes. (Ages 4–7)

When an ice storm snaps a small girl’s favorite branch from the tree in her yard, she won’t let it be hauled away. To her, it wasn’t just any branch, “It was my castle, my spy base, my ship …” Her neighbor Mr. Frank agrees. He says the branch has “potential,” and the two get to work transforming what was broken into something whole and new, to be enjoyed again and again.