The simple plot — composed of what are essentially episodes in the life of a pioneer family before the virgin hardwood forest was cut down — is told in a third-person narration rich with folklore and suggestive of early backwoods speech.

When Worth notices that the wild game is leaving the woods near their settlement in Pennsylvania, he convinces his wife and family to move to where the animal population is more plentiful.

The youngest child, Sulie, becomes lost in the deep woods; unable to find her, the family gives her up as either dead or taken captive by the Lenape Indians.

At the book's conclusion, the couple has begun to clear the land of trees surrounding the cabin, in order to plant crops.

Richter conducted extensive research both for historical details and to convey the mode of speech of the early 19th-century pioneers of the Ohio Valley, many of whom originally emigrated from Pennsylvania and the Upper South.

In order to write an authentic dialect to express this, Richter used rare collections of old manuscripts, letters, and records that documented the speech of early 18th- and 19th-century residents.

He noted that, although it is often mistaken for a "native" form of speech there, it should be considered "a living reminder of the great mother tongue of early America.

"[3] The characters in The Awakening Land deal with the human condition in a setting of great natural challenges as they carve out lives on the frontier.

There was a high mortality rate due to disease, warfare, natural disasters, severe weather, and accidents, as well as dangerous animals.

When Sayward has problems in her marriage or with her own children, whether due to her husband's infidelity or generational differences, she tries to defuse tensions and ultimately forgives any wrongs committed.

"[5]She attributes her father's preference for the "woodsy" life to his being part Delaware Indian ("Monsey", also spelled Munsee, in the dialect of this group).