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)