Narrator Tom Wingo introduces the reader to his troubled birth family. Now in his late thirties, Tom grew up in Melrose Island off the coast of South Carolina with his father Henry Wingo, mother Lila, twin sister Savannah and older brother Luke during the late 1940s and 1950s. While his mother is beautiful and imaginative, his father is a patriarchal, rough army veteran working as a shrimper. The conflict between the dreamer, literary, “word-struck” (4) mother and abusive father forms the childhood landscape of the Wingo children. Since both his parents were extraordinary human beings, Tom feels the havoc they unwittingly wreaked on their children is correspondingly as great. Tom recalls his father’s punishing nature. When Tom is ten, he accidentally kills an endangered bald eagle, a crime his nature-loving father deems unpardonable. As punishment, he makes Tom pluck the bird, cook, and eat it. For a month, Tom is also forced to wear a headdress made of eagle feathers to school.

Meanwhile, Tom’s early memories of Lila are filled with wonder. Creative and intelligent, Lila introduces her children to nature, making each natural phenomenon, such as the moonrise, appear wondrous and magical. This ignites the children’s imagination and gives them a unique affinity for the natural world.