The little town of Concord, Wisconsin, is bustling with new settlers from the East. Caroline is now eleven years old, and she can't wait to go to the town's new school. Her days are full with classes, chores, and harvesttime. Wisconsin has its very first state fair, and Caroline becomes friends with a fiddle-playing boy from accross the river, a boy named Charles Ingalls. "Across The Rolling River is the fifth book in the Caroline Years, an ongoing series about the adventures of another girl from America's favorite pioneer family.