Facts and fictions are different truths. Minna Pratt stares at this message above her mother's typewriter every day and tries to understand it. But how can she, when her mind is already so full? She wishes her mother would ask her normal questions like "How was your day?" instead of "What is the quality of beauty?" She wishes her brother, McGrew, could catch a baseball. She wishes she had a vibrato and could play Mozart on her cello the way he deserves to be played.

Then she meets Lucas Ellerby. Minna thinks Lucas has the perfect life. His home runs smoothly and evenly. Dinner conversation is full of facts, and everyone always has matching socks to wear. So why is he so intrigued by her family?

Minna doesn't know, but as her friendship with Lucas grows, she discovers some important truths about herself and her family.

In Patricia MacLachlan's hope-filled coming-of-age story Minna learns to value her family because of their eccentricities, and to value herself because of her own.