"[For] readers who love good storytelling and spirited heroines."
--Booklist (starred review)
"[A] gentle, lovely tale of a deeply bonded family, replete with a
clever mystery." --Kirkus Reviews
When a troubled children's book author moves to their farm, two kids
with troubles of their own hatch a scheme to swipe the ending of the
final book in a bestselling series to get a reward from the book's
publisher in this gorgeously written novel in the tradition of Wonder
and Out of My Mind.
Twelve-year-old Sara and her brother Hawk are told that they are not to
bother the man--The Mister--who just moved into the silo apartment on
their farm. It doesn't matter that they know nothing about him and they
think they ought to know something. It doesn't matter that he's always
riding that unicycle around. Mama told them no way, no how are they to
bother The Mister unless they want to be in a mess of trouble.
Trouble is, trouble is the last thing Sara and her brother need. Sara's
got a condition, you see. Marfan syndrome. And that Marfan syndrome is
causing her heart to have problems, the kind of problems that require
surgery. But the family already has problems: The drought has dried up
their crops and their funds, which means they can't afford any more
problems, let alone a surgery to fix those problems. Sara can feel the
weight of her family's worry, and the weight of her time running out,
but what can a pair of kids do?
Well, it all starts with...bothering The Mister.
