"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"--

No one would accuse eleven-year-old Caddie Woodlawn of being dainty and ladylike. In spite of her mother's best efforts, Caddie is as wild as the wind, playing freely and rambunctiously with her two brothers in the Wisconsin backwoods. There are rafts to build, and trees to climb, and pranks to play. Caddie especially likeds to watch her friend Indian John build birchbark canoes at the river. Everyday seems wide with possibility-as wide as the frontier....

Twelve-year-old Mitch and his mother are spending the summer with his grandparents at Bird Lake after his parents separate, and ten-year-old Spencer and his family have returned to the lake where Spencer's little brother drowned long ago, and as the boys become friends and spend time together, each of them begins to heal.

A little pioneer girl and her family, living in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, make their first trip into town to visit the general store.

A young pioneer girl and her family attend a wintertime party at her grandparents' house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin.

Buster sends postcards to his friends back home when he and his father visit an international food festival in Wisconsin, where he meets six girls who will be performing a traditional Hmong dance.

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.