This book surprised me by how much I enjoyed it. The writing is nice and solid and the foreshadowing is good without being over the top. This book had a little supernatural feel to it but was really just about a boy growing up in Northern Wisconsin and trying to do the best he could with a less than ideal situation.

This is the summer before Pete's 16th birthday, the peat bogs in Northern Wisconsin are burning up and the drought is making matters worse. Pete spends a bit of time with his friend Jim and also sitting in the fire tower watching for new smoke and lots of time to think about things he'd rather not. Talking with some of the old people on the res he finds several different viewpoints on how the 'past' really was which has a way of changing his view of the now. Will Pete grow up to be a man his father would have been proud of or... ( )