Following a husband's job promotion and the family's move to California, the Jacobsens are content to trust their children's education to the local public schools until a calamity forces these parents to look more closely at what's been going on - there aren't any Christmas Carols at the Winter Festival, and a bully has been stealing their son's lunch. As Miriam unpacks her family's lives we learn more about these folks from the Midwest, and we meet Peter, their crotchety neighbor whose resume includes teaching at parochial schools and a local college, but whose unkempt yard and life - just...