Ten-year-old tomboy Millie MacCallum needs a break from her parents and new baby sister almost as much as they need a break from Millie. So it's arranged that Millie will spend the summer with her aunt at Stoney Lake in Ontario's Kawartha Lakes region, one of the province's first areas of pioneer settlement. It's 1914 and life in the Kawarthas is much different than Millie's urban existence in Toronto. In the course of a wonderful, adventurous summer, Millie learns about another way of life--and about herself--in ways that she would never have imagined.