Paint the Wind may be Pam Muñoz Ryan’s best work yet. She writes for picture book level up through 8th grade, but her stories are so inspiring that they are enjoyed by adults as well. This particular book has a complexity not often seen for younger ages. It is 2 stories in one. A girl goes from living with her strict, overly protective paternal grandmother, needing desperately to have a connection with her dead mother, to living with her mother’s father, aunt and uncle on a ranch and in the wild with tents. Paralleling the girl is a wild horse, the lead female of her band.