Changes for Kirsten

Winter has reached the Minnesota frontier in 1854, and Kirsten Larson's family is shut inside a small cabin to wait out the cold. Her brother Lars checks his trap line through the snow, and Kirsten keeps close to the family's modest store of food and warmth.

In the woods, Kirsten finds an orphaned raccoon kit and cannot bring herself to abandon it. She takes it home. The animal gets loose inside the cabin and knocks over a fire that burns down the Larsons' house and nearly everything in it.

With the home gone and the season still harsh, the family faces a bleak stretch ahead. Kirsten and Lars go back into the woods, where they make a discovery that gives the Larsons a way to rebuild.

This is a historical children's novel about a pioneer family, told in close third person through a young girl's eyes. It is the sixth and final book in the original Kirsten series. The pace is steady, with a sudden crisis in the first part and a longer stretch of hard work and recovery after it. The tone stays hopeful even as the family loses almost all it owns.