In Wisconsin, fourth-grader Ida B spends happy hours being home-schooled and playing in her family's apple orchard, until her mother begins treatment for breast cancer and her parents must sell part of the orchard and send her to public school.

Charli's impulsive uncle, Will Crandall, decides to buy the town's abandoned, possibly haunted castle and fix it up as a bed-and-breakfast, but Charli and Sophia, a clairvoyant orphan who has come to stay with the Crandall family, know his plan is somehow dangerous.

When Caroline Quiner and her family are forced to move from Brookfield further west, Caroline, who will become the mother of Laura Ingalls Wilder, does her part as they settle in and make a new home.

"On his eighth birthday, Billy Miller wishes for something exciting to happen. None of his wishes are answered the way he expects, but he does have lots of surprises--and the final one is possibly the best one ever"--

A year in the life of two young girls growing up on the Wisconsin frontier, as they help their mother with the daily chores, enjoy their father's stories and singing, and share special occasions when they get together with relatives or neighbors.

When Esther's family moves to a farm during the Great Depression, she soon learns that there are things much more important than that her superstitious mother rarely shows her any affection.

Young Caroline Quiner, who would grow up to become Laura Ingalls Wilder's mother, and her family survive their first year without Father in the frontier town of Brookfield, Wisconsin.