Rylant wrote Missing May in the first person, revealing the thoughts and feelings of the grieving protagonist, Summer, who goes to live with her Aunt May and Uncle Ob when she is six years old. Summer's mother has died and none of her mother's brothers and sisters in Ohio want to be bothered with her. When she arrives at the run-down trailer in Deep River, West Virginia, that Ob and May call home, Summer discovers a family of her own — and enough love to last her a life time.
For six years, Summer feels like "she's died and gone to heaven." Her life is perfect. May takes care of Summer and Ob and enjoys her "gardening." Ob creates whirligigs that represent abstract ideas or things such as May's spirit, hope, heaven, love, dreams, and death, which they call The Mysteries. Summer goes to school and lives what she considers to be a normal life. But when Summer is 12 years old, her world is turned upside down. May dies suddenly while working in her garden. Ob and Summer are devastated. They don't know how to go on without May. Within a short time, Ob reveals to Summer that May's spirit has visited him. Summer becomes concerned about Ob. She is afraid that Ob will want to be with May and that he will die and she will be left alone.
