Fifteen-year-old Amari loves life in her home village in Africa. She spends her days strolling along the stream, daydreaming about her handsome future husband, teasing her little brother, and avoiding chores. But everything changes the day the visitors arrive. Her world changes forever as the strangers begin killing the adults and young children.
Amari stands stunned as her parents drop dead from gunfire. Her little brother urges her to run into the jungle for safety; they try, only for Amari to be captured and her brother to be shot dead.



Upon arrival in America, Amari is sold to the highest bidder.
Amari meets Polly, a white girl. The two girls from different ends of the earth bond together in order to survive.

The whole black person meets white person, then struggle ensues until they eventually come to love one another thing is overdone; but Draper doesn’t spend a lot of energy trying to sell that aspect of the book, which is why the book thrives.