When a little girl loses her grandmother, her world is drained of all its color and whimsy, until a magical dream carries her back toward the light in this tender and imaginative picture book about grief.

Mama Belle tells her granddaughter that color made the world happy, and Ladymay knows this is true. Their life together is full of wonder, and May dresses in the prettiest rainbow-colored outfits and chases morning sunrises and beautiful butterflies. Then Mama Belle goes away and May learns she won’t be coming back. May gets sent to live with strangers who already have a house full of children. All the color fades from her world.

Then an old cassette tape brings back Mama Belle’s voice, and that night, an elephant comes to May in a dream. It takes her across Virginia and through the ocean, to the land of the ancestors Mama Belle told her about. Can this elephant help May remember the beauty of her grandmother’s lessons and return color to her world?