The Book of Bright Ideas by Sandra Kring

I picked this up at the book store a few weeks ago and boy, oh boy, am I glad I did. If anyone wants to read it, let me know and we can pass it around.

Shy nine-year-old Evelyn "Button" Peters knows 1961 will be the biggest summer of her life the moment she sees wispy little Winnalee Malone and her fiery-spirited sister, Freeda, blow into town. Winnalee is like no girl Button's ever known: she carries an urn of her mother's ashes at all times, along with her "Book of Bright Ideas," which she claims will reveal to her the secrets of life-and the two girls quickly become best friends. Among the adults, things are more complicated; Freeda's temperament brings her as many enemies as friends, especially Button's mother, Jewel, and throughout a summer of dry heat and upheaval, loyalties will be tested, unlikely alliances formed, and devastating secrets revealed, after which Button fears nothing will ever be the same-or, worse, that it will.

It's one of those books that makes you smile and reminds you of people you know. Well, atleast it did for me. I got a kick out of the little girls and the way the were so different and yet they were "best friends forever." Remember as a child, how you found out all the really interesting stuff if you were all ears and blended into the woodwork? Remember that innocence, the things that made you laugh and what it felt like to spin in circles until you fell in an exhausted heap. I don't want to say to much, because I am afraid to give anything away....but thank goodness for Family like Aunt Verdella and Uncle Rudy..they are what I call "good people."