Grove draws on the Midwestern past of her ancestors as she sets this story on a farm on the Illinois prairie.

Her grandparents' bright, friendly two-story farmhouse with the wraparound porch is the model for the grandparents' home in Rimwalkers.

Rimzvalkers Grove's great-grandpa's shadowy home with two round attic windows becomes the deserted, decaying, paint-bare house that the ghost inhabits. This fascinating ruin can be seen from the home where the cousins spend the summer.

The farm plays a crucial part in the story as Grove details the sights, smells, and sounds of country life from the pre-dawn chores of feeding musky animals to the shimmer of sunlight on the pond to the twilight chirping of crickets. The cousins gathered on the farm during this summer of change are outsiders in their own home environments; here in the country they take advantage of the fresh start given them...