Caddie Woodlawn | Setting

Caddie Woodlawn Setting

The book opens in the early autumn of 1864 and traces the events in Caddie's life over the following year. Brink uses the changing seasons as a narrative framework. During two months of winter and three of summer, Caddie and the other children of nearby Dunnville attend school. The schoolteacher devotes spring and fall to the children of a neighboring settlement, while Caddie and her brothers help with the chores at home: feeding the livestock, plowing, and gathering nuts and berries.

Some of the most dramatic events of the story take place offstage. The Civil War ends and Abraham Lincoln is assassinated, but Caddie learns this only through distant news reports. Although the war plays no part in the book, the Woodlawn children hear it discussed among the adults. Caddie's father, who manages a sawmill, has paid a man to fight in his place—a common practice, especially along...
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