The Children's Blizzard

Set in 1888 on the Great Plains of Nebraska and Dakota Territory, the novel opens by establishing the world of immigrant homesteaders, predominantly Scandinavian and German families lured by propaganda falsely advertising the prairie as a paradise. Under the Homestead Act, thousands stake claims on territory recently taken from Indigenous peoples. The boosters and railroad investors who profit from their migration give them no further thought.

On the morning of January 12, 1888, the weather is unusually mild after weeks of bitter cold. The Army Signal Corps, the military division responsible for weather forecasting, has issued no severe warning. Children head to school dressed lightly.

Raina Olsen, a 16-year-old schoolteacher in northeastern Nebraska, sits at her desk while her pupils recite lessons. She boards with the Pedersen family: Gunner, a charming horseman; his volatile wife, Anna; and Anette Pedersen, a young girl whose mother abandoned her as unpaid labor. Gunner has been showering Raina with attention, and she has developed an infatuation. The previous week, he crept to her bedside and urged her to run away with him. Anna appeared with a butcher knife, and Gunner retreated, leaving Raina shattered.

Raina sends the children outside for recess. Within minutes, a massive blizzard descends, preceded by sparks of static electricity and a wall of black cloud. Back inside, Raina takes stock: The children are inadequately dressed and firewood is nearly gone. She waits for rescue, trusting Gunner will come. Anette, terrified of facing Anna if she loses her slate and lunch pail, bolts from the schoolhouse. Fredrik Halvorsan, Anette's only friend, chases after her, and both vanish into the storm. Fredrik's older brother, Tor Halvorsan, wants desperately to follow, but Raina restrains him, arguing she cannot manage the remaining 10 children alone.

In Dakota Territory, Raina's 18-year-old sister, Gerda Olsen, has dismissed her pupils early to spend the afternoon with her suitor, Tiny, a young man who dreams of going west. Gerda boards with the Andersons, an elderly couple. When the storm strikes, she is in Tiny's sleigh with two small pupils, Minna and Ingrid Nillssen. The sleigh overturns; Tiny runs after his horse and disappears forever. Gerda carries Minna on her back and drags Ingrid through blinding snow until she finds a haystack, where she collapses.

In Omaha, Gavin Woodson, a disgraced former reporter for the New York World, works at the Omaha Daily Bee writing propaganda for railroad boosters. Before the storm, he notices a young immigrant woman whose hopeful presence moves him to tears. Meanwhile, Ollie Tennant, a Black bar owner, fights through the storm to retrieve his children from their segregated school on the North Side. He takes charge, spending the night keeping everyone safe and resolving afterward to move to the North Side and fight for better schooling for Black children.

Back at the schoolhouse, the blizzard blows out a window. Raina decides they must leave or freeze. She ties the children together with their apron strings and leads 11 of them into the storm toward the Halvorsan farm half a mile away. After a harrowing journey, a break in the clouds reveals the farmhouse, and Mrs. Halvorsan guides them inside. Tor, furious that Raina kept him from chasing Fredrik, tells her he will never forgive her. Mr. Halvorsan goes out searching for his son.

At the Pedersen house, Anna holds Gunner at gunpoint all night, preventing him from leaving to rescue anyone. Out on the prairie, Anette and Fredrik reconcile after a bitter argument and fall into a ravine behind the Pedersen homestead, where they huddle together and fall asleep.

By morning, the storm has passed, replaced by lethal cold. Tor discovers his father frozen near the barn. Raina refuses to return with Gunner, recognizing him as a weak man. She takes the reins and drives to find the missing children. Anna has already found them in the ravine: Fredrik lies nearly naked beside Anette, having stripped off his clothing to cover her. Fredrik is dead. Anette is alive but her left hand is severely frostbitten. Anna, overcome with guilt, nurses Anette with desperate tenderness.

Gerda crawls from the haystack at dawn to discover she is only 25 yards from the Nillssen farmhouse. Both girls are dead. Gerda's feet are blackened with frostbite. At the Pedersen house, Doc Eriksen, the community physician, amputates Anette's left hand. Anette wakes to learn Fredrik is dead and her hand is gone. She is filled with bitter anger, believing her life was not worth his sacrifice.

Gavin sets out from Omaha to report on the blizzard's aftermath, documenting frozen bodies and shattered families across the prairie. At the Pedersen homestead, he meets Raina and Anette and begins writing their stories for the Bee, dubbing Raina "The Heroine of the Prairie." A Heroine Fund is established, eventually totaling nearly $15,000 in donations.

Anette's biological mother, Mrs. Thorkelsen, arrives after learning of the fund, making a show of affection while scheming for the money. That night, Anna lures Mrs. Thorkelsen to the barn and shoots her, burying the body in a remote ravine. She tells the others the woman left voluntarily.

Gerda's aftermath unfolds in parallel: Her foot is amputated, and she learns all nine of her students have died. Her father slaps her and tells her the community wants her dead. She carries the secret that she dismissed school early to be alone with Tiny. The Andersons ask her parents to remove her, and she is sent home in agony.

In spring, Raina offers Tor half her fund money for college, but he declines, unable to leave his mother and the farm. Back home, the sisters have a cathartic conversation. Gerda confesses she sent the children home to be with Tiny; Raina confesses her near-affair with Gunner and her passive waiting during the blizzard. They acknowledge the crucial difference: Raina ultimately acted, and Gerda did not. Gerda announces she will go west, unable to remain as an outcast.

Anette is placed with a guardian family in Omaha and enrolled in boarding school. Gavin takes her on a tour of the city before departing for New York, telling her that saving her redeemed him. Anette runs one last time across the outskirts, imagining Fredrik beside her, then lets him go.

Five years later, Raina, now a university student, encounters Tor in a dry goods store. She feels a stirring of hope, but when Anette joins them, the connection between Anette and Tor is immediate. In Tor, Anette sees echoes of Fredrik and, at last, home. Raina recognizes that they belong together, bound by shared loss, and quietly steps aside, imagining their future on the prairie and a first son named Fredrik.

Gerda's fate is revealed through letters spanning years. She visits the Rocky Mountains to say goodbye to Tiny, teaches at a government-run Indian school in Montana where she witnesses the mistreatment of Native children, then drifts into solitude. In her final letter, she is thin and gray-haired, still reciting the names of her nine dead students every night. She writes that the storm blew both sisters free: Raina through heroism, Gerda through failure. The last thing Raina receives is a list of those names in a weak hand. To it, Raina adds one more: Gerda.