In a family composed of three strong, independent women (daughter, mother, grandmother), it's often what's left unsaid among them that resonates the loudest for the youngest family member, 14-year-old Emmie. Now that Grandmother Ola is dying with cancer, Emmie feels compelled to hear the truth behind their silences. She knows that something awful happened long ago that no one ever mentions. What was it? In a spare, eloquent first novel, Angela Johnson shows that silence can dull the pain of tragedy but can never really cure it. Emmie discovers that one must ring the dead into heaven with great noise, by elegizing, keening or even by striking a plow with a hammer, a folk ritual known as "toning the sweep." (Age 12 and older)

On a visit to her grandmother Ola, who is dying of cancer in her house in the desert, fourteen-year-old Emmie hears many stories about the past and her family history and comes to a better understanding of relatives both dead and living. The videotaping is Ola's idea--Ola, Emmie's grandma who lives in the California desert is dying of cancer. Emmie and her mother have come to "the dry" to pack up Ola's house and take her back to a hospital in Cleveland. As Emmie starts photographing Ola's friends, she learns about her family history and their heritage. As Ola is sped off to heaven, life below is revered and celebrated.