Through the eyes of a young, inquisitive protagonist, the novel follows the three-year-long war that devours half of South Korea, billions of American dollars, and more than a million lives, including 54,000 Americans. As the story weaves through the narrator's comfortable home in Pusan to the mountains shrouded in Buddhist mysticism and then to the island of Cheju, where she becomes a temporary orphan, readers not only feel for the people in a war-raging country, but also hear a child's lively voice capturing the humor and mystery of everyday life.