Lydia is a little Amish girl who lives on a farm near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

All summer long Lydia has worked on a little hooked mat, her first "piece" that must be finished before she can go to market with her father. She is busily at work on the first page of the book, but through the following pages in spite of her best resolutions, she is much more interested in the wagon coming down the road, in the stories that Granny tells, in stopping at Cousin Lavinia's, who "makes apple butter today," in calling on the new baby at Cousin Kate's, or even chasing Nate's runaway pig, almost anything in fact but the little hooked mat with its unfinished roses. But finally, the roses are finished and Henner's Lydia ends happily.

The story of Lydia and her family, and of her first trip to market, is the first picture book of one of the most sturdy and picturesque sections of America today—the Pennsylvania Dutch country.

Mrs. de Angeli lives on the edge of the Pennsylvania Dutch communities. She has visited in the Amish homes and schools and sketched the boys and girls at work and play. Every detail of her lovely drawings, so delicate and yet so full of action and vitality, reflect her understanding of the fine American traditions of the Pennsylvania Dutch.

From the dust jacket