Jumping-Off Place

Four orphaned children abandon everything they know to claim a piece of the American dream. When seventeen-year-old Becky Linville leads her three younger siblings from Wisconsin to the empty prairies of South Dakota, they're chasing a future Uncle Jim promised would be theirs. Then tragedy strikes: Uncle Jim dies, leaving Becky as the unexpected head of household. With no adults to guide them, the children face the brutal reality of frontier life. Summer brings crippling drought. Winter delivers deadly blizzards. And lawless claim-jumpers eye their land with greedy intent. What transforms this adventure tale into something deeper is the children's determination to build more than a home; they're fighting to earn a place in a skeptical community that doubts whether four motherless children can survive where grown men have failed. This is resilience distilled into its purest form, a story about what young people can accomplish when circumstances demand everything of them.