On a spring day, Mouse Molly and her siblings go outside to play and are caught in a storm. They turn down offers of refuge from a squirrel, a harvest mouse, and a group of rabbits, before Mother finds them and leads them to shelter in a hollow tree. When they are safe and dry, Molly worries about her new meadow friends. She ventures out into the storm, finds the animals displaced (there is no explanation of what happened to their homes), and offers them refuge in the tree. In the morning, they awake to find a rainbow, which Harvest Mouse tells Molly is "a special present for saving us." Hansen's beautiful watercolor illustrations are visions of spring, done on a perfect mix of single pages and spreads, and her cartoon animals are large and expressive.
