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.
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.
After immigrating from Sweden to join relatives in an American prairie community, Kirsten endures the ordeal of a strange school through a secret friendship with an Indian girl.