This is not your everyday John Grisham book. The protagonist is a seven year old boy named Luke Chandler, whose dream is to get off the cotton farm someday and pitch for his beloved Cardinals. Squeezed into a small, unpainted house with his parent and grandparent, and required to pick cotton for long hours of the day, on addition to garden chores, Luke accepts his life for the moment, but dreams of better places and bigger things. He lives amid tensions. There is tension, carefully controlled, between his grandparents and his parents. There is tension between the cotton pickers -- a group of Mexicans housed in the barn out back and the Spruils, an Arkansas hill family camping in tents in the front yard. But the biggest tension is living near Hank Spruil, the hulking bully who took on three tough Sisco kids in a Saturday afternoon fight and left one of them dead. Pappy Chandler must keep the sheriff as bay at least until the cotton is picked, for the Spruils would be gone in ten minutes if Hank was arrested.

This is not as heart-pounding as a typical John Grisham story. Less mystery, but much to wonder at (if you're a seven year old boy), to worry about (if you're a Chandler), and to enjoy (if you're a reader).