This narrative non-fiction book is set in the context of the civil war in Sudan, which ended in 2005. Ayuel and Beny tell their own experiences, fleeing their burned villages and making their exodus along with thousands of other displaced children who had lost their families.
They walked for months across barren land, menaced by starvation, disease, wild animals, and shrapnel from helicopter fire. The story follows the evolution of their thinking from revenge to peaceful solutions as they spend fourteen years in refugee camps. The Arab Islamic government of Sudan wished to impose their strict sharia laws on the black Christian and Animist south and claim the newly discovered oil reserves.