Poignant tale of a 9-year-old girl's emotional journey after her idyllic life is shattered by her mother's illness.

Ida B's life is perfect: she is home-schooled by loving parents on a beautiful farm with its own orchard, creek and mountain (well, a pile of earth too tall to be called a hill). Left to her own devices in this rural haven, she talks to the trees in the orchard and sends miniature rafts down the creek, to which she attaches notes like What is life like in Canada? Please respond. But the idyll is shattered when Ida B's mother develops cancer. Her father is forced to stop home-schooling her - and to sell the orchard to a property developer. Feeling angry and betrayed, Ida B rebels in every way she can think of - until a young teacher at her new school shows her how to open her heart to others...