it's very difficult to make an analogy that fits well to how lightning works

but it would be great if someone could sit down and write an explanation that would be like a child's book to start it, just takes a nice analogy

like, something about how each step of the path has a piece of a thing that you need to send to your friend, and you have to go to each stop and pick up the thing and add it to the present to build it - that would be a good starting point