In this sequel to the award-winning Ticket to Curlew, the Ferrier family, after three years on their prairie homestead, are feeling quite settled. As 11-year-old Josie starts to take note of the way the adult world works, events over the course of the year covered in the novel, including the imminent departure of her older brother Sam to continue his education in Edmonton, show her possibilities for spreading her own wings.

First there is the arrival of Margaret Graham, a longed-for friend Josie’s own age, but their friendship is clouded by Mrs. Graham’s hatred of the flat, windswept prairies and her resulting deep depression. Comparing her own mother’s involvement in the larger community with Mrs. Graham’s self-imposed isolation, Josie realizes how one’s choices can change difficult situations into bearable ones. She finds another role model in a newspaper story about stunt pilot Katherine Stinson, a woman succeeding in a world far different from the traditional world of women. Then Josie sees her mother stand up to a school trustee who is trying to cheat a young woman teacher out of her salary. These examples help her to realize that with determination and drive she could aspire to a more challenging career than the accepted ones of farm wife or schoolteacher.

The characters in this appealing, well-written story are fully developed and the situations – from Josie’s near-fatal trudge through a winter blizzard, to her encounter with a stunt pilot, to her clever solution to the problem of the Graham family’s need for a better house – will keep readers turning the pages. At the same time they will gain a multi-layered sense of Canadian society in 1918: returning soldiers trying to fit back into their former life, the killer influenza that spread from community to community, the struggle of women to break out of their confining roles. Enjoyable simply as a story of Josie’s 11th year, this book will also work well in classroom units about life choices, Canada in the early 20th century, and prairie farm life.