Baba had made Lesia a promise: just remember the flower is not always open, but if your effort is true, your rewards will be sweet. Fifteen-year-old Lesia treasures those words as she and her family leave Baba in their Ukrainian hometown and flee to Canada. Dreaming of fields of wheat and wealth and security, Lesia's family look forward to life in Canada free from hunger and poverty and rumours of war. But the 160 acres of uncleared prairie they buy in Manitoba look nothing like the wheat fields of their dreams. And even though there is no fighting in Canada, the First World War follows them there. Life in her adopted country is not what she brgained for, but as Lesia fights to survive, she discovers that even in hardscrabble land, flowers do open and dreams can come true.