Growing up near Boston with her free-spirited mother and old-world grandfather, twelve-year-old Emma has always felt out of place but when she attends the family reunion her father's family holds annually in Wisconsin, she is in for some surprises.

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.

Twelve-year-old Mitch, spending the summer with his grandparents at Bird Lake after his parents' separation, becomes friends with ten-year-old Spencer, who has returned with his family to the lake where his little brother drowned years earlier, and as the boys spend time together and their friendship grows, each of them begins to heal.

A little pioneer girl and her family spend the winter in their log cabin in the Big Woods of Wisconsin.

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. [YOUNG HOOSIER]

When Billy Miller has a mishap at the statue of the Jolly Green Giant at the end of summer vacation, he ends up with a big lump on his head. What a way to start second grade, with a lump on your head! As the year goes by, though, Billy figures out how to navigate elementary school, how to appreciate his little sister, and how to be a more grown up and responsible member of the family and a help to his busy working mom and stay-at-home dad.

Young Caroline Quiner, who would grow up to be Laura Ingalls Wilder's mother, and her family move to a new farm near Concord, Wisconsin.

"A little girl and her pioneer family spend a summer in the Big Woods of Wisconsin"--Verso page.

"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." --

Six-year-old Caroline and her older sister Martha share wash-day chores, playing in the snow, and the first day of school in their home on the Wisconsin frontier.