First published 2008
Laura Ingalls watches the prairie grass bend in endless waves as her family travels toward their new home in Dakota Territory. The year brings changes that test everything she knows about frontier life. Pa has taken a job with the railroad company, and the family must adapt to a different kind of wilderness than they have known before. Laura discovers that growing up means watching familiar patterns shift like the silver light on the lake that gives their new home its name. The railroad brings strangers and new possibilities to their isolated world. Laura must navigate between the girl she was and the young woman she is becoming. She learns that some changes arrive whether you welcome them or not. The story captures the tension between holding onto family bonds and embracing the unknown future that stretches ahead like the vast Dakota sky.
Genres: family-life, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 19th-century
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate
Tropes: coming-of-age, fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Dakota Territory, Silver Lake
Period: 19th Century
304 pages · Library Binding · Turtleback Books