This is a book I think about from time to time. A book I read once as a kid, remember loving, loving especially because I was allowed to read a few curse words, and then putting aside. I didn’t realize until I decided to reread it that it held some clear and direct influence for me.
It’s a book from the mid1980s and its about a small town in Kansas experiencing a horrible spate of tornadoes and thunderstorms on a summer night. The narrator is a boy in 6th grade who is heaving a pretty regular Tuesday until his parents aren’t home, his house is destroyed, he’s separated from his family, forms a new family with neighbors and friends, and gets to reflect on the experience.
It’s one of those books where as a kid I thought was not in fact terrifying, but amazing. I was mesmerized by tornadoes, and thought my life would have a LOT more of them — and by the way, it’s actually had quite a few even though I live in central Virginia. I commute to work every day past explicit and still remaining tornado damage from bad storms in the fall. But as a kid, I would have thought it was the most amazing thing (to conceive of). But there’s a scene near the end where they find, not even the main kid’s dad, but the neighbor’s dad, and his reaction to seeing his kids and the main character is so much more where I am now it was almost tough to read.
Also rereading this book solved a mystery for me. For years, I had thought about a book’s discussion of “red letter days” v “black letter days” and could never figure out where it was planted in my mind from. It was this one, so I had a little moment of relief and joy right at the beginning.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Night-Twisters-Ivy-Ruckman/dp/0064401766/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1ACTFSL5J1OJG&keywords=night+of+the+twisters&qid=1552147167&s=books&sprefix=night+of+the+t%2Caps%2C123&sr=1-1)