Renee Graef

Ten-year-old Kirsten is proud and excited when she finds a bee tree full of honey, one of the natural treasures of her Minnesota frontier world, but she exposes herself to great danger by trying to harvest the honey by herself.

Kirsten and her family celebrate their first Christmas in their new home on Uncle Olav's farm in mid-nineteenth-century Minnesota.

Nine-year-old Kirsten and her family experience many hardships as they travel from Sweden to the Minnesota frontier in 1854.

In 1856, Kirsten and her cousins look after the farm while the adults go to town for supplies, and everything is fine--until a blizzard surprises them.

When a new girl arrives at school, Kirsten is jealous, completely forgetting how scared and lonely she felt the year before when she was the new girl in school. Gives instructions for making a friendship pillow like those made in the 1850s.

Kaya becomes jealous of a girl from another tribe until they are forced to work together in a dangerous situation. Includes historical notes on Indian trading along the Columbia River in 1764, as well as instructions for creating a petroglyph.