On the morning the last French ships leave the harbor and Morocco awakens to its independence, 12-year-old Jo escapes to claim his own.

His life until that day has been anything but easy. On the day he runs, he resolves to break free from his foretold destiny. In the old city, where every future is known before it begins, no one ever changes their fate. No one even dares to try. Jo endures a life of cruelty at the hands of his parents, with no room to grow. Only his stooped aunt offers him solace, shielding him from his mother's embers of rage, while a small donkey serves as his sole confidant—a friend to help him think his thoughts.

When Jo flees into the great plains, he wanders until he meets a French couple, childless but full of love. For the first time, he discovers kind eyes, tenderness, and the embrace of a mother's love for her adopted son. He grows, he strengthens, he becomes a young man.

But the tender years are fleeting. The birth pangs of the Moroccan independence movement (the Istiqlal) tear the life he has built apart. The couple is banished back to France, and in a single moment, Jo is ripped away from them.

He is sent back to his parents' home, where he is confronted, once again, with the life he was meant to live. But the years of freedom have changed him. In the heart of the boy who was once lost, a wondrous and surprising new ability has taken root—one that will set him on an entirely new path.