Eleven-year-old Nhamo is running for her life. When the village witch finder decrees that she must marry a cruel stranger to propitiate an evil spirit, her only recourse is to steal a fishing boat and go looking for a father she has never met. Alone on the Musengezi River, Nhamo has meager resources to help her survive loneliness, hunger, wild animals, and even land mines. During the grueling months in her leaking boat and on a deserted island, she has only visions of her dead mother and other spirit ancestors to sustain her. They transform her solitary journey into a luminous spiritual odyssey, one from which she will need to draw strength when she reaches her destination.

Listeners who have enjoyed another of her Newbery Honor books, The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, know the broad range of imagination and talent this award-winning author brings to her work. Young listeners will gain a healthy respect for the richness of cultural diversity even as they're realizing the universality of the human experience.