Educational Media Reviews Online

Come Feel the Wind, paints a picture of what a child goes through when they experience death and dying close up. Clara is pictured happily playing and interacting with her parents, living a normal, happy, everyday life. When illness and eventually death strike her father, we are shown the phases Clara goes through to eventually cope with his loss. The stages are not discussed nor are they clearly discernible; they are implied through Clara's behavior, disagreements with her mother, tears, and anger. The video takes us full circle when it portrays Clara re-enacting a scene with her mother, a scene she has played out with her father in the past. Clara is working in the garden when she feels the wind rise. She calls to her mother to, "Come feel the wind!" When a storm approached Clara and her father used to pretend to become part of the storm, calling for the rain to come and water the garden. Clara is now able to share this special event with her mother and finally accept her father's death.

This program may be difficult for children to connect with. Very little concrete explanation or discussion takes place, and the subtleties of the film may be lost on the audience it is intended for. Come Feel the Wind can be compared with another video reviewed in this journal, The Magic Within. Reviewed by this author, the latter title also covers the topic of death but from a slightly different perspective. The story unfolds after a young girl's parents have been dead for a few months, which is unlike Come Feel the Wind, where Clara is shown going through the process of dealing with a dying parent. While concrete explanations are also not a part of The Magic Within, the dialogue between characters offers a much fuller insight into what a child might deal with. Come Feel the Wind will need to be shown under the supervision of a child psychologist or other trained professional so that its full intent can be ascertained. Recommended for health related libraries or counselling centers only.