Thirteen-year-old Ellen Stump has never been out of the hill country of Mississippi, but has traveled vicariously through watching the News at Noon with newscaster Maureen Sinclair. Ellen feels self-conscious and out of place when she ventures into the closest town and does not have many friends because of her isolated home.

For most of her life Ellen has been content on the farm, the closed-in feeling giving her a sense of security. But during the last couple of years, she has begun to feel trapped as she sees the wide open world of the newscaster.

Sleet, the thunder-shy horse that had brought such pleasure to Ellen and her younger brother Billy, is now Ellen's personal demon. During a storm a year before the novel begins, Sleet threw Billy, who died of a broken neck. He was buried beside Ellen's mother under the chinaberry...