In rural Minnesota in 1974, thirteen-year-old Pride Star, raised to be independent, must accept help from friends and neighbors to care for eleven-year-old Nightingale and six-year-old Baby when her grandfather is hospitalized with a brain infection.
"Desperate to keep her older brother from being drafted in the Vietnam War, eleven-year-old Reenie strikes up an unlikely friendship with Mr. Marsworth, an elderly shut-in, who helps her in her mission"--