This book is an imagined diary that highlights the everyday happenings of real-life girl Lillie Belle Gibbs and her experiences on the family farm in the late 1870s. Terry Swanson served for ten seasons as program and site manager at the Gibbs Farm historic site operated by the Ramsey County Historical Society, publisher of the book. A Minnesota historian, she specializes in public history in the Twin Cities area. Swanson mined the RCHS archives to stitch together the story of Lillie’s life as an adventure-seeking eleven-year-old.