Nature always lets me be just how I am. She is my refuge. She draws out my grief. Only wilderness can restore my peace.

It is a bitter cold February day in 1875 when eleven-year-old Geneva Stratton returns to her old family farm in northern Indiana. Forced recently to move to a nearby town, she misses the peace and beauty of the farm and its surrounding woods and fields. But what she misses most of all is her mother, whose funeral she's come to attend.

Geneva knows she'll have to return to town soon. But now, in the depths of grief, she needs the wild desperately. She needs the care only Nature can provide. And so, just for today, into Nature she goes.

Based on the life of author and naturalist Gene Stratton-Porter, Little Bird Woman follows young Gene as she wanders the land she loves and communes with the natural world around her. There she might find peace and comfort, and the hope to carry on.