When her sister, star-athlete Jakarta, finally joins them, Dakar feels much safer and happier in Cottonwood, North Dakota, where she and their parents are living for a year, but she still longs for their home in Africa.
When taken from an orphanage to work on a farm in North Dakota in 1926, twelve-year-old Tree searches for a home not only for himself but also for his irrepressible younger brother.
In the early 1930s, Karl and his sister Mary Adare, arrive by boxcar in Argus, a small off-reservation town in North Dakota. Orphaned, they look to their mother's sister Fritzie and her husband for refuge.
In 1911, a farm family is killed in Pluto, North Dakota, and three Ojibwe are lynched for the murders even though there is no evidence of their guilt; and years later, the events of the crime reverberate among the descendants of those involved.
Fleur Pillager, an Ojibwe Native-American upset with the lumber company that stripped her reservation of trees, walks to the twin cities for revenge and lives with Polly Elizabeth Gheen, a vulnerable upper-class women who is transformed with Fleur's guidance.
Fidelis Waldvogel, a German sniper during WWI, returns home to marry the pregnant widow of his best friend who was killed in action, and seeking a better life moves his family to North Dakota where he sets up a butcher shop, starts a singing club, and battles an attraction to the mysterious Delphine, a performer who has returned to Argus to care for her alcoholic father.
An illustrated introduction to North Dakota that covers the geography, climate, weather, plants, animals, history, people, cities, transportation, natural resources, industry, sports, and entertainment of the state.
Pictures and text describe several aspects of the state of North Dakota, including its history, government, economy, people, achievements, and landmarks.