The Book of Bright Ideas

Publisher Comments:

Friendship. Sisterhood. Secrets. For two girls, an incredible journey is about to begin…

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.

Synopsis:

From the author of the "poignant [and] engrossing" ("The Washington Post") "Carry Me Home" comes a sweet and sharply drawn story of two young girls living in a world of their imagination, while lives around them are thrown into disarray.

Target’s Bookmarked™ selection for summer 2006

Named to the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age 2007, as an adult book suitable for teens.