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, the school 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 being 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 there from Boston with her family, one that nearly cost her life. Set in the 1860s, the novel 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 1935 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 that received the Newbery Medal in 1936 and a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958.

Caddie woodlawn author