“Can you hear it? Voices. Splashes upon splashes of sound. I hear it all like one big noise … Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.” A child on a playground sits apart from all of the other children while they play. “They are there. I am here.” The child turns a piece of paper into a paper airplane and launches it on an imaginary journey, riding the plane up into the clouds before coming back down to find the other children ready to catch the plane: “We’ve got you!” Eventually the paper airplane is noticed in the real world by one other child. But one is enough. “'I’m here,’ says the girl’s smile.” Peter H. Reynolds imagines the interior world and external experience of a child on the autism spectrum—or any child who has felt her- or himself to be an outsider—in this spare, graceful picture book featuring softly colored, uncluttered illustrations surrounded by ample white space. (Ages 4–9)

I’m here.
And you’re there.
And that’s okay.
But…
maybe there will be a gentle wind that pulls us together.
And then I’ll be here and you’ll be here, too.

Pure, powerful and deceptively simple, bestselling author and illustrator Peter H. Reynolds reminds us that children—and the friendships they make—can take flight in unexpected ways.