Laura is growing up and in addition to working hard to earn money to help send Mary to a school for the blind, her social life is becoming more interesting and includes a blossoming friendship with Almanzo Wilder.
Twelve-year-old Austin Ives writes letters to his younger brother describing his three-thousand-mile journey from their home in Pennsylvania to Oregon in 1851.
When a drought tests the commitment of a mail-order bride from Maine to her new home on the prairie, her stepchildren hope they will be able to remain a family.