Gregory C. Randall weaves a story of secrets in northern Michigan during that hot and stormy summer. With the constant fear of nuclear war, an exploding Middle East, and memories of World War II still fresh with flowers on soldiers’ graves, a fourteen-year-old boy realizes that he is growing up. In Howie Smith’s world of primal forests, orderly orchards, and Lake Michigan, he learns about life and begins to understand death. A crazy aunt, a dying uncle, and the unyielding pressure to bring in the demanding crop of cherries, Howie is forced to realize there is more to life than baseball. Randall reveals, during this brief summer, a family’s fears and triumphs. He explores a region of America separated from the chaos of the world. It is a place of necessary yet unwanted migrant pickers, backwoods people who must live off the land, and the grand lake thatall. But Howie discovers it is also a land of wonders.