Like the Willow Tree by Lois Lowry

In 1918, as the Great War rages in Europe, the Spanish influenza tears a brutal path across the United States, leaving devastation in its wake. Suddenly, eleven-year-old Lydia Pierce and her older brother, Daniel, find themselves orphans of the flu, and are taken by their grieving uncle to be raised in the Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake. Thrust into the Shaker’s unfamiliar way of life, Lydia, a fiercely independent girl, must grapple with a new world that is nothing like the one she used to know.

Lydia must work hard, and all the while she worries about her headstrong brother, who has run away. In time, and with her courageous spirit, Lydia learns to overcome the devastation– yet she cannot stop wondering, will Daniel ever return?