Preface Summary

This novel for young adults is set during the mid-1970s in Cambodia, during a period when the country was ruled by the Khmer Rouge, a Communist dictatorship. It tells the story of a young girl and her family, innocent civilians caught up in a war being fought between that dictatorship and outside governments trying to remove it from power. As the narrative recounts the hardships that Dara and her family encounter as they struggle to stay together and to survive, the novel explores themes of self-confidence and the nature of family.

The author sums up the history of Cambodia, the country in which her novel is set. She comments on how centuries of relative peace were ended by the emergence of a communist dictatorship in the 1970s, and on how an invasion by the Vietnamese Army began the process of freeing Cambodia...