For Cyrus Buckman, the idea of home has always been fleeting. An orphaned grandson of migrant farmers, he's never stayed in the same town for more than two growing seasons. So while others develop long-lasting, meaningful friendships, Cyrus tends to spend time in his own head-a private world of "Imagines and Ghosts," as his grandfather would put it.

But when Cyrus meets Jake Thompson, "big man on campus" and local stud, everything seems to change. Drawn out of his lonely, imaginative world, Cyrus is introduced to a whole host of boyish excursions and adventures-and grows fond of his...