Tennyson lives in the backwoods of Mississippi and is perfectly happy. That is, until her mother, Sadie disappears. Her father, Emery Fontaine, decides to go looking for her and leaves Tennyson and her sister, Hattie, with their Aunt Henrietta, who runs the Fontaine family house, Aigredoux. Once there, Tennyson is faced with an aunt who can’t live in the present, a house that’s falling apart, the fact that her mother may never come back, and most interesting (and haunting) of all, the dreams of her family’s past that she keeps having.

This book is a hard one to pin down. I liked it; there’s a lot going for it in terms of mood and Tennyson is a good, strong main character. I liked the portrait of the deep South, both in the 1930s and the glimpses into the height of the Civil War. It’s full of tragedy and mood and discovery and dreams. I think out of all of it, I liked the dreams the best — Blume captured the essense of the High South, the grand ladies, the southern mannerisms, the Gone-With-The-Wind fierceness in the face of destruction and betrayal. I found the dream sequences fascinating.

Real life was less so. I was pained by Sadie; I cringed even though Blume just skirted the top of the iceberg when it came to Sadie’s mothering. I felt so terrible for the girls, and for Emery who was just trying to keep it all together. There were so many deeper issues in the book; I’m not sure how many would come across to a child reading this, or if it’s just my life and wide reading that makes the neglect and jealousy and betrayal pop out at me.

For that reason, though, the ending worked for me. I could see what Blume was doing with it. Yes, it ended abruptly, but I think this part of Tennyson’s life was finished, and she was moving on. Therefore, the book needed to end, even if the story wasn’t ended. I could see, though, how it can be unsettling, leaving all the ends dangling, the story unfinished.

It’s at the very least a good mood book, and a good Southern book. And a very good one for a cool fall day.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel. Thank you.)