Based on actual accounts from women's diaries, a first-person fictionalized narrative tells of one family's wagon trip from Independence, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. Black-and-white drawings offer a visual panorama of the arduous events in a journey which can be followed on the map at the book's beginning. (Ages 8-12)

A young girl relates the hardships and dangers of traveling with her family in a covered wagon from Illinois to California during the 1860's.