Orphaned as a teenager, Jim Burden comes to live with his stern grandparents on their isolated farm. His pain and loneliness ease when he meets the beautiful Antonia, the high spirited daugher of neighboring immigrant farmers. Antonia's lust for life in her new country endears the young woman to Jim, but not his grandparents, who want bigger and better things for their grandson

"It begins with a simple ritual: Every Saturday afternoon, a boy who loves to cook walks to his grandmother's house and helps her prepare a roast chicken for dinner. The grandmother is Swedish, a retired domestic. The boy is Ethiopian and adopted, and he will grow up to become the world-renowned chef Marcus Samuelsson. This book is his love letter to food and family in all its manifestations. Marcus Samuelsson was only three years old when he, his...

Relates the experiences of two young brothers and their family, immigrants from Sweden, from their arrival in New York through the journey to their new home in Minnesota

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

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

In 1904 South Bend, Indiana, recently married Hilda Johansson Cavanaugh struggles with her adjustment from being a servant to that of the wife to the affluent Patrick. Worse she finds herself isolated from her spouse's upper crust family and friends while her former working class peers snub her. Despite her unsettling circumstances, Hilda agrees to help her only remaining friend Norah O'Neill after the police arrest Norah's husband Sean, accusing...

Nine-year-old Kirsten keeps her friendship with a Sioux Indian girl a secret until Kirsten's little brother becomes lost in the woods. Includes a section on Sioux Indians and a project related to the story

Ten-year-old Kirsten regrets the promise she has made to a ragged boy she discovers alone near a wrecked covered wagon not far from her Minnesota home