Having decided that it is backward day, a boy dresses himself first in his coat, last in his socks, and continues in that way with the cooperation of his family.
Life in their rented summer cottage on Seacrow Island is sometimes happy, sometimes exciting, and sometimes tragic, but never uneventful for a Swedish author, his three sons, and nineteen-year-old daughter.
When seven-year-old Mary's father puts her beloved cat, Thomasina, to sleep, Mary stops speaking to him and becomes gravely ill until Lori, a woman rumored to be a witch, restores Thomasina to health and Thomasina saves Mary.
The exploits of mischievous ten-year-old Edie spending the summer on the Massachusetts seashore in the 1910s with her siblings and step-siblings while their parents are in Europe.