Akron Public Library

Fourteen-year-old Polly Rodgers keeps a diary of her 1873 journey from England to Minnesota as part of a colony of eighty people seeking religious freedom, and of their first year struggling to make a life there, led by her father, a Baptist minister.

"Laura and her family find a new home in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, where the nearby creek and swimming hole lure Laura with dangerous, yet thrilling adventures. Too soon, their life is threatened when prairie fires and other strange events jeopardize their crops."

A tough Minnesota winter brings many changes to Kirsten's frontier life, including the new responsibility of helping her brother Lars set his traps and a move into a new house for her family.

Carl Erik, a recent immigrant from Sweden, becomes the man of the house when his father and uncle go to work in a logging camp, and he learns many things about life in Minnesota while attending school, doing his chores, and trying to put meat on the table.

In the winter of 1898, a seventh-grade boy drops out of school to work with his father, the cook at Blackwater Logging Camp in Minnesota.