After an October blizzard, Laura's family moves from the claim shanty into town for the winter, a winter that an Indian has predicted will be seven months of bad weather.

Eleven-year-old John Hale has already survived one brutal Dakota winter, and now he's about to experience one of the deadliest blizzards in American history. The storm of 1888 was a monster, a frozen hurricane that slammed into America's midwest without warning. Within hours, America's prairie would be buried under ten feet of snow. Hundreds would be dead, thousands terrified and lost and freezing. John never wanted to move to the wide-open prairie....

Twins Nathan and Aria discover that tunnels under the stage in their church's cultural hall lead, magically, to another time when they find themselves on the pioneer trail with Joseph, a boy their age, and must find their way back home.

Describes the experiences of children and teenagers who made overland journeys in nineteenth-century America, including the California, Oregon, and Mormon trails, and presents profiles of ten individual children, adolescents, and sets of siblings.

When their parents die on the way to Oregon in 1843, seven children decide to complete the 2000-mile trek through the wilderness on their own.

Uses materials from letters and diaries written by survivors of the Donner Party to relate the experiences of that ill-fated group as they endured horrific circumstances on their way to California in 1846-47.