"The Rose Thieves" gives us the Vanderwald family: flamboyant, hot-tempered Lila, who feels trapped living in a small New England town; her sentimental, eternally optimistic husband, a failed futures-market investor; and their children. An affectionate daughter steals flowers from gardens all over town for her big sister's sixteenth birthday. A tea party for the local minister is turned upside down by a four-year-old's remark. Sheep wander through the kitchen, an enraged mother swan menaces the sisters as their own mother entertains a possible lover, and, after a near-disaster, Lila proclaims "We faced death; death couldn't face us " Amidst the chaos, Kate, the oldest daughter, practices piano because "Haydn will give order to everything, if only you play him right." With wit, natural artistry, and a keen eye for the absurd, Heidi Jon Schmidt effortlessly weaves stories of strange but all-too-real family life.