This story is full of practical jokes and touching moments like the long journey home of Nero, a beloved pet. Tom and Warren, always a part of her adventures, come along for the journey. Things come to a head when “perfect” Cousin Annabelle from Boston arrives for a visit and Caddie is forced to confront her future. From a midnight ride through the forest to warn her friend “Indian John” that the settlers are planning an attack, to a prairie fire that brings out the best in Obediah, a schoolhouse bully, to a life-threatening fall through a lake while ice skating, her life is far from boring. She, undaunted, spends the next year having a string of adventures and scares. The book opens with Caddie, late for dinner after an excursion to visit the local Indian tribe, embarrassing her mother with her antics. They spend much of their time exploring the woods and rivers that surround their farm.

Sickly and weak, she is allowed to run wild with her brothers, Tom and Warren, to regain her health. As a young girl she made the journey from Boston to Dunnville with her family, one which nearly cost her life. Set in the 1860s, it is about a lively eleven-year-old tomboy named Caroline Augusta Woodlawn, nicknamed “Caddie”, living in the area of Dunnville, Wisconsin. Macmillan released a later edition in 1973, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. The original edition was illustrated by Newbery award winning author and illustrator Kate Seredy.

Caddie Woodlawn is a children’s historical fiction novel by Carol Ryrie Brink which received the Newbery Medal in 1936 and a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958.

Caddie woodlawn by carol ryrie brink