Though warned by her father to steer clear of Amos Garland -- the reclusive veteran who lives in two abandoned buses atop Cade's Hill -- young Lawanda Ingle finds herself standing in his garden. By ignoring her father's words, Lawanda discovers a friend to whom she can open her heart and share her dreams. But Garland is still in thrall to personal demons: his part in the horror of the Second World War and the resulting craziness that drove his family away. Into this charged world comes Lawanda, too young to he afraid, who unwittingly awakens the old man's pain and longing. Amid his busload of books and maps, Garland and Lawanda forge a friendship that threatens them both when his journal is confiscated and his words are twisted by a zealous man's fantasies and a righteous father's wrath.

Dazzled,

a little girl listens

to her old neighbor's story

of following a falling star

when he was a boy.

He found it, too.

He put it in her hands.

But that's not all

the starfinder has to tell.

One day something

found him.

It's a story

too good to keep.

See for yourself.