Wisconsin, 1961. Evelyn 'Button'� Peters is nine the summer Winnalee and her fiery-spirited older sister, Freeda, blow into her small town - and from the moment she sees them, Button knows this will be a summer unlike any other.

Much to her mother's dismay, Button is fascinated by the Malone sisters, especially Winnalee, a feisty scrap of a thing who carries around a shiny silver urn containing her mother's ashes and a tome she calls 'The Book of Bright Ideas.'� It is here, Winnalee tells Button, that she records everything she learns: her answers to the mysteries of life. But sometimes those mysteries conceal a truth better left buried. And when a devastating secret is suddenly revealed, dividing loyalties and uprooting lives, no one - from Winnalee and her sister to Button and her family - will ever be the same.