Christmas Day 1876 just happens to be the eleventh birthday of Lillie Belle Gibbs. Her mother and father present her with a new journal. Grasshoppers in her bed, unusual weather, a smudge pot to keep the mosquitos at bay, the one-room schoolhouse across the road, popping corn in the Victorian parlor, the hired hands who live on the farm five months of the year, and her best friend, Minnesota Mae Hendrickson, all make appearances in this imagined diary. Using clues the real-life Lillie left behind through writings as a child and an adult, this work of historical fiction is filled with stories and illustrations that detail a year in the ordinary life of a Minnesota farm girl from the 1870s.