If someone is nervous at the idea of speaking in front of others the fear often manifests itself in an abstraction of the reality of the situation, for example but, that doesn’t make the fear itself any less real. It’s important too that the thing that is feared is heard but never seen because fear often comes in ways that can’t be explicitly understood. Although certain anxieties require more attention and care than just slowly counting up or down, this counting distracts the child’s anxiety felt by facing a menacing sound that cannot be seen.

I think it could be said that this works for thunder as it does for other things.

So too does Christ look at the child in the same way Babushka does when they are held together in the chair.īabushka gives the child a coping mechanism to delay the overwhelming fear that the child has of the sound. She walks into the room to see the child covered under the bed covers and when she exclaims to the child to come out there is a picture of Christ watching over the child. There is, arguably, a reason to think Babushka is a great protector and teacher. I must admit, however, I have a soft spot for this story as it is one my mother used to read me to help quell my fears as well, so perhaps there may be a bias. Although the child of the story wears a similar garb to Babushka, the child is only referred to as ‘child’ never ‘boy’ or ‘girl’, and although not a perfect uniform representation of all creeds and colors of children, this does allow for a neutral view of the child in the story to be better relatable. Eventually they are able to make the cake and symbolically the child overcomes the fear of thunder.Īs I’ve come to realize, I enjoy books which tell stories that allow the child/hero of the story to be a mirror for the reader child.

Slowly as the storm comes closer and closer the two collect more and more ingredients. 1-2-3-4… the child slowly counts after seeing each flash of lighting, after all Babushka has said told her to do so to mark how far away the storm is. A clever way to get the child to stop from hiding from the sounds of rolling thunder, the two proceed to find the necessary ingredients for the cake. The child fears the thunder, so Babushka suggests they make thunder cake. The story is told from the perspective of the grandchild to Babushka or grandmother.

Grandma's thunder cake