Little Heathens details the remarkable challenges and inestimable rewards of living a rural life wherein children were expected to accept responsibilities beyond the ordinary.

Growing up on a working farm in rural Iowa during the Great Depression, the author and her siblings were raised by aging grandparents with Puritan values and a Protestant work ethic. The farm had no running water, central heat, electricity, or money, and the children had to work side-by-side with the adults and had a part in practically every aspect of making the family and the farm a success.