Even Sunflowers Cast Shadows by Douglas Armstrong

Emma Starkey is a spunky little girl trying hard to be charitable and virtuous in this award-winning novel. But her calculated attempts have a way of backfiring with tumultuous consequences in this poignant story of small-town life in 1920s Kansas. As Emma's cranky grandmother observes, "Even sunflowers cast shadows."
Weaving through four years of Emma's engaging disasters is her chaotic friendship with a transplanted Yankee whiz kid, Margaret Drummond, whose family arrives one summer burdened with a heavy secret and a flair for the dramatic. Emma's and Margaret's brothers and sisters become friends, too, but their screwball pursuits and youthful infatuations spawn rivalries that threaten to split them apart.
Perilous-even tragic-turns await, along with powerful and unexpected lessons about friendship, jealousy, compassion, and the curious world of grown-ups.
Cornucopia, Kansas, is filled with colorful crackpots, bullies, and quiet heroes. In their stories, and most especially Emma's, Even Sunflowers Cast Shadows recaptures a faded moment when innocence could still be lost grudgingly.