A fourteen-year-old boy is sent to the front lines of the Korean War in this searing story of survival, loss, and hope.

Fourteen-year-old Myung-gi knows war is coming: War between North and South Korea. Life in communist North Korea has become more and more unbearable-no freedom of speech, no freedom of movement, no freedom of association-and his family makes the long and deadly escape to South Korea.

Not all of them arrive, however, and Myung-gi-bookish, sensitive, the son of a teacher-feels hatred growing in him like a poisoned seed. Surviving as a refugee in Busan is hard, so hard. There’s no dignity, no hope, no food: he carries water for pennies, watches his sister wear cardboard sandals, watches his mother cut and sell her hair for a single silver coin.

He is too young to be a soldier, but the South Korean army takes him anyway, and sends him north to fight the communists who broke his family and nation apart.

Should a boy fight a war? Can the human spirit survive the wasteland of battle?