The year 1965 in Wakely, a small county seat in southeastern Kansas, is one filled with mystery, secrets, and discoveries. Eleven-year-old Becky Raines and her family have lived in this commuinty for three and a half years. A pastor's family, she and her three siblings are expected to be good examples for other people.

As Becky experiences everyday life in a small town, other issues make their appearance, from the Shadow Woman who scurries the alleys at night, to Mrs. McAdoo who continues to take advice from her long-deceased husband, to the racial tension, the Vietnam War, and the space race of that year.

In The Dandelion Garden, a historical fiction novel, colorless, grainy television news reports transfer into the school yard, the sanctuary, and even into a little girl's vision of a dandelion garden until shadows disappear and nothing seems black and white anymore.