When fifteen-year-old Elizabeth finds an antique doll in a garage sale, she thinks it would be a good gift for her dad who's about to ship out for Afghanistan. She doesn't realize that the doll might be a missing (and very valuable) historical artifact. 

With the help of Evan, the cute guy who works at the local used bookstore, Elizabeth discovers that the doll is THE soldier doll: the inspiration for a famous World War I poem. Elizabeth becomes the newest link in an epic history of more than a century of war, her story ingeniously interwoven with a cast of characters who we follow from World War I to Nazi Germany in the 1930s, a Czech concentration camp during World War II, Vietnam in 1970, and the aftermath of September 11th.