In 1955, inspired by a televised automobile advertisement, twelve-year-old Sara Hellerud and her twin sister Susie took up dancing. Like the pair of huckstering ballerinas who sailed over the Buick, they vaulted over milk cans and barbed wire. The TV dancers had provided an irresistible contrast to the workaday world of their family's dairy farm in Polk County, Wisconsin. This and other fantasies shared by the twins enabled them to dance through a tense childhood and adolescence. From the vantage of middle-age, Sara recalls her early years with pride and humor. She also explores the process...

he Myers family--practical, idealistic father, dainty, dignified mother, serious older brother Bob, rascally younger brother Everett, and Marjorie, the middle child and only girl--moved to the island cottage every summer once school let out and stayed until classes began again. Her story of those peaceful seasons is a fond reminiscence of a loving and supportive family and a powerful reminder of the timeless beauty of Minnesota summers at the lake.

"Crane Island, 'a tiny scrap of land in the remote western end of Lake Minnetonka's Upper Lake, ' is the setting for Marjorie Myers...