Sixteen-year-old Marguerite Hartranft, the boldest of three sisters in a well-bred West Philadelphia family, balks when her mother tells her, "You do not need to understand. You need only to listen and obey." Marguerite has a passion for learning and questioning everything. When she thinks her parents plan to send her to a convent, she runs away to Thousand Islands, New York. She spends the summer tent camping on the north shore of Grenell Island. There she meets like-minded women, learns how to take care of herself and falls deeply in love with island life.
Grenell 1881 is the first book of the Thousand Islands Series, which give readers a peek at summer life in the Thousand Islands from 1881 until 1961.