Young David has grown up in an isolated cabin with his father (since his mother's death when he was only four) in a beautiful mountain setting. There, his father has given him an excellent but unusual education - he is fluent in several languages, knows a great deal about science and nature and plays the violin beautifully. His father has sheltered him from all evil and taught him only what is good and beautiful.

One day he and his father pack their belongings and head back toward civilization. The father, deathly ill, dies on the journey and David finds himself in the care of a well-meaning elderly farm couple. They and most of their neighbors have a very difficult time understanding the golden-hearted David, who makes friends with the lonely and forgotten of the town and soothes many hardened hearts with his beautiful music. David becomes wrapped up in a fairy tale and a mystery which figure heavily in the plot.

Parents may see this story as an embodiment of some of the most fundamental ideas of the homeschool movement. Some will no doubt find it a little sappy. It might make an interesting contrast to the book North to Freedom by Anne Holm, whose character, also called David and of approximately the same age, makes a transition from the evils of a prison camp into a much more beautiful world.