Ways to Make Sunshine

“If we can't go to the parade,
let's have one here.”

I saw this quote from Ways to Make Sunshine today, and I had to read this book.

Ryan Hart is the perfect character in the perfect story for these unsettling times. Ryan's family is moving to a smaller house. Ryan's dad, who had lost his job, has just accepted a new job, but the new job is for less money. Ryan and her brother, Ray, have frequent, petty squabbles. Sometimes Ryan and her friends have difficulties. Should Ryan obey her mother and keep her new, fancy hairdo dry or should she take on a rival for her friend's affections and get her hair wet?

These are the sort of issues Ryan and her family face in this little children's book, the sort of ordinary troubles families face everywhere every day. Ryan's parents are the wonderfully reassuring parents we all wish we had. They continually remind their children how much they love them, and they encourage their children to push themselves to be better than they are, and they never crush them with their discipline or their expectations.

And Ryan, surrounded by that ring of love from her parents and supportive friends, does become better than she was, finding a way to make sunshine in the rain, rising up to become a leader.

It's delightfully refreshing to spend time with these characters today.