This first book in the Planting Dreams series portrays Swedish immigrant Charlotta Johnson as she ponders the decision about leaving her homeland, how they will travel to America, and worries about her family?s future in a new country.

This book series is based on the author's ancestors, and contains actual maps of where they traveled and settled. Each chapter is written as a thought-provoking story as the wife of the family travels to a new country to find a new life for her children. Why did this family leave? Drought scorched the farmland of Sweden and there was no harvest to feed families or livestock. Taxes were due and there was little money to pay them. But there were ships sailing to America, where the government gave land to anyone who wanted to claim a homestead.

Can you imagine starting a journey to an unknown country, not knowing what the country would be like, where you would live, or how you would survive? Did you make the right decision to leave in the first place? Follow Charlotta and her family as they travel by ship and rail from their homeland in 1868, to their homestead on the open plains of Kansas.