An adolescent Jewish girl makes the arduous exodus on foot from Ethiopia to Israel with her older brother and younger sister. Based on events which occurred over a six month period between 1984-85, the story is intricately plotted, so that it never lags, yet no element seems contrived or coincidental. There is a remarkable development of Desta's character, as a teenage girl with adolescent worries, called upon to make extraordinary sacrifices and courageous advances in order to attain a goal. (Age 14 and older)

Fifteen-year-old Desta belongs to a small, isolated mountain community of Ethiopian Jews. She and her brother and sister leave their aunt and uncle and set out on the long and dangerous trip to freedom -- an airlift from the Sudan to Israel, the Promised Land. They travel barefoot, facing hunger, thirst and bandits. "Vivid and compelling...Levitin's tour de force is sensitively written." BOOKLIST. An ALA 1987 Best Book for Young Adults.