Jane Andrews would tell her stories to children before she published them. Her stories changed and improved with each telling. Finally she took pen to paper and wrote them down. Before publication she read her stories to a group of friends in the library of an old New England home. After their enthusiastic approval she sent her stories to a publisher. Stories in this collection include The story of the amber beads, The new life, The talk of the trees that stand in the village street, How the Indian corn grows, Water-lilies, The carrying trade, Sea-life, What the frost giants did to Nannie's run, How Quercus Alba went to explore the underworld, and what came of it, Treasure-boxes, A peep into one of god's storehouses, The hidden light, Sixty-two little tadpoles, and Golden-rod and asters.

Jane Andrews was an American writer and educator who lived from December 1, 1833, until July 15, 1887. She was able to establish a small elementary school in her home in 1860, where she taught J. Lewis Howe, Alice Stone Blackwell, and Ethel Parton. Her teaching, which was influenced by Mann's theories, was innovative for its time since it placed a strong emphasis on student experimentation, observation, and participation in the learning process as well as societal responsibility. Her health eventually forced her to close the school in 1885 after 25 years. A number of well-known children's novels were born from her lessons. Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball That Floats in the Air (1861), her debut book, is a compilation of tales about seven young sisters who reside in various strange locations. The book was so well-liked that it was translated into Chinese, German, and Japanese and sold close to 500,000 copies over the following century. A sequel, Each and All: Seven Little Sisters Prove Their Sisterhood (1877), and a novel comparable to it, Ten Boys Who Lived on the Road From Long Ago to Now, about boys living in various historical eras, were published after it (1886).