Night of the Twisters

Night of the Twisters is a young adult realistic fiction novel by Ivy Ruckman that was released in 1984 by publisher Harper & Row (now HarperCollins). The book is a semi-fictionalized account of the 1980 Grand Island tornado outbreak, which produced seven tornadoes (including two that rotated anti-cyclonically) in and around Grand Island, Nebraska, on the evening of June 3, 1980, killing five people and injuring 134, and is told from the point of view of its 12-year-old protagonist Danny Hatch, who – after his home and neighborhood are destroyed by one of the tornadoes – begins a search for his parents as the event takes place.

The book won six literary awards including the Golden Sower Award, the Iowa Children's Choice Award and the Sequoyah Children's Book Award and as well as an Outstanding Science Trade Books for Children recommendation by the National Science Teachers Association and Children's Book Council. A loosely adapted made-for-cable television film of the same name was released on February 14, 1996, airing on The Family Channel (now Freeform).

The story is centered on and told by 12-year-old Danny Hatch, who resides in Grand Island, Nebraska, along with his father John, mother Linda, and his younger infant brother, Ryan. In the prologue leading to the tale of the events of June 3, 1980, Danny surmises about "red-letter days" (days in which positive things occur to a person) and whether it would be good to find out ahead of time about "black-letter days" (described by Danny as "blockbuster [events] that mess up your life").