Patricia MacLachlan returns to the prairie setting that readers came to love in Sarah, Plain and Tall, this time with a gentle, contemporary story about a boy, his grandfather, and the special bond they share.

Jake’s grandfather, Billy, hears the talk of birds, is eighty-eight years old, and is going to live forever. Jake and Billy love taking walks around the family farm, and every day, Billy tells Jake just how much he misses his old sod house where he lived before the wooden farmhouse was built. Billy asks Jake to build him a little sod house, but Jake is reluctant, for reasons even he doesn’t quite understand.

But then Billy gets sick. If Jake builds Billy’s beloved sod house, maybe Billy will come home from the hospital and everything will go on as always. Can Jake do this one special thing for his kindred soul