In alternating chapters John Bul Dau and his wife Martha Arual Akech tell of their African Childhoods and show African life and values at their best, at the same time providing searing accounts of the hardship, famine, and war they and their people faced during civil war in Sudan. John Bul Dau grew up on a traditional cattle-centered farm in Duk county in southern Sudan. When Sudanese civil war brought northern soldiers to his village in a nighttime raid, John fled into the bush to save his life. He was one of thousands of lost boys who fled their homeland. He lived through hunger exhaustion, and violence, finally finding shelter in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya. And it was at the Kenyan refugee camp Kakuma where John met Martha. In 1989 Martha Arual Akech fled into the bush with her younger sister trying to escape violence in her Sudanese village. This was the start of a terrifying journey that tore her away from those she loved and eventually brought her to Kakuma where she spent nine years.

Girls at the camp were being sold into marriage and were not allowed education provided to the boys. Martha eventually came to the United States where she adjusted to a new world and built a new life. Like the other books in the memoir series, this is a story of strength, survival, and an unbreakable spirit. John and Martha's stories are a testament to human resilience and kindness, and a perfect story to educate and inspire young readers.