In the strict confines of a small Old Colony Mennonite community in rural Saskatchewan, the precociously observant Jakob Schellenberg, middle son of a God-fearing farming family, grows increasingly aware of the outside world from the pictures in the Eaton's catalogue, the weekly farm paper and the city folk who occasionally stop by and dazzle him with their shiny new cars, fancy clothes and perfume-scented skin.

Jakob's instinctive, exuberant response to the daily events of prairie life during the Dirty Thirties somehow holds him apart from both family and community, causing him to look further, to yearn for something more. His poignant, often humorous, coming-of-age leads him "out of the village", only to discover that the village will be with him wherever he goes.