Omakayas, a seven-year-old Native American girl of the Ojibwa tribe, lives through the joys of summer and the perils of winter on an island in Lake Superior in 1847. For as long as Omakayas can remember, she and her family have lived on the land her people call the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker. Although the chimookoman, white people, encroach more and more on their land, life continues much as it always has. Every summer the family builds...

Illustrations and rhyming text introduce the four seasons as icicle popsicles drip, daffodils bloom on hills, fireflies blink on and off, and honking geese fly by.

Depicts the changes that occur on a small island as the seasons come and go, as day changes to night, and as a storm approaches.

Follows the seasons of the year as reflected in the growth, life, and death of the garden of a large rural family.