Louise Keller’s father moves the family from Sandusky, Ohio, to the Philippines, to head a Baptist missionary school. But then the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor and war comes to the Philippines. Louise’s father is trapped in Manila and Louise and her mother and the other residents of the missionary must flee to the jungles to avoid the Japanese. But in time, they are discovered and imprisoned in internment camps. There, Louise copes as best she can without her father and tries to help her mother who is traumatized by events. Starvation, lack of privacy, sickness, and danger are always present, but Louise also makes good friends and matures in a way she couldn’t have imagined.