Not too long ago you could walk along Shaker Lane from Schoolhouse Road all the way to Old Meeting House Road.  The houses on Shaker Lane were little better than shacks.  Their lawns were never mowed; their yards were a disgrace.  Their neighbors in Foster Hollow didn't think much of the people who lived on Shaker Lane; some probably wished that Shaker Lane would disappear forever.  Still, Virgil Oates and Norbert La Rose, Big Jake Van der Loon and Old Man Van Sloop added a lot of color to Foster County.  And when they learned that the new reservoir was going where their houses stood, they didn't even try to fight.  they just moved on...who knows where.

In the most strikingly beautiful and deeply felt book of their distinguished careers, Caldecott award winners Alice and Martin Provensen have created an unforgettable portrait of a community that gathered by chance.  A host of vivid characters come alive in the paintings filled with warmth and vitality.  More than a remembrance of a place lost in society's advance, Shaker Lane, is a sharply observed comment on changing American society.

From the dust jacket