A young Nebraska girl discovers the courage to save others during a life-threatening snowstorm.It is 1888. Twelve-year-old Anna loves life on the Nebraska prairie where she lives with her parents and four-year-old brother in a simple sod house. She doesn't mind helping out with chores on her family's farm, especially when she is herding sheep with her beloved pony, Top Hat. Here, on the open prairie, Anna feels at home in the world. But at school she feels hopelessly out of place. Arithmetic is too hard, her penmanship is abysmal, and stuck-up Eloise Baxter always laughs at her mistakes.When a fierce blizzard suddenly kicks up on a mild winter day, Anna, her schoolmates, and young teacher, Miss Simmons, become trapped in the one-room schoolhouse. The kerosene is gone and the wood for the stove is low.