Cassie Binegar

Cassie thought longingly of the order and pattern in her mother's old garden inland. And her old tree house, built on the low limbs of a huge maple tree. It had been her space. Here there was no space for her. Even her own room was not hers.Cassie Binegar (whose name rhymes with vinegar) hates the weathered house by the sea, where there is no space to call her own. She yearns to go back to her old home, back to the time before she had yelled at her grandfather, before he had died. She tongs for an orderliness to life -- a pattern-that doesn't exist among her raucous, loving family. Cassie hides and watches and listens; but then her Gran comes-Gran, who is so good at seeing the truth about Cassie. The rest of Cassie's relatives arrive also: Uncle Hat, who sometimes speaks in rhymes, Cousin Coralinda, who wears too many feathers, and Baby Binnie, who speaks a language all her own. When a stranger comes for the summer, Cassie begins to learn that there are some things that do not stay the same forever.Patricia MacLachlan, with the gentle insight and understatement that characterizes all her stories, writes of a wistful young girl trying to look at the world through the eyes of those she loves.