In 2008, Kollie, whose family emigrated to the United States from Liberia due to civil war, is struggling. After Kollie is suspended from school for beating up an African American classmate, Kollie’s father decides to send him back to Liberia. In 1926, Togar is fleeing soldiers who raided his village to conscript men and boys for work on farms owned by Congos—descendants of African American immigrants to Liberia. In 1827, Yasmine and her children escape slavery for Liberia, the trip arranged by white men whose motivation is to rid America of the problem of slaves. Following hardship and tragedy, Yasmine’s family becomes part of Liberia’s ruling class, although her daughter choses life with the boy she loves from a native tribe. In 1980, Liberian student Ujay is involved in government protests while the young woman he loves is a member of the ruling class who acknowledges the need for change but does not know how to achieve it. The price for political change proves high. And in 2018, Kollie’s sister, Angel, is piecing together this history, one in which oppressed become oppressors, and racism and classism seem endemic to the human condition. It is the history of her family, and a single talisman, the clasp of a purse, runs through it. So, too, does kindness and love—things that can and must endure. An informative and personal author’s note concludes this ambitious exploration of the painful, long-lasting effects of the colonization in Liberia by formerly enslaved African Americans. (Age 15 and older)

The heartbreaking story of five generations of young people from a single African-and-American family pursuing an elusive dream of freedom.

"Gut wrenching and incredible.”— Sabaa Tahir #1 New York Times bestselling author of An Ember in the Ashes

"This novel is a remarkable achievement."—Kelly Barnhill, New York Times bestselling author and Newbery medalist

"Beautifully epic."—Ibi Zoboi, author American Street and National Book Award finalist

Dream Country begins in suburban Minneapolis at the moment when seventeen-year-old Kollie Flomo begins to crack under the strain of his life as a Liberian refugee. He's exhausted by being at once too black and not black enough for his African American peers and worn down by the expectations of his own Liberian family and community. When his frustration finally spills into violence and his parents send him back to Monrovia to reform school, the story shifts. Like Kollie, readers travel back to Liberia, but also back in time, to the early twentieth century and the point of view of Togar Somah, an eighteen-year-old indigenous Liberian on the run from government militias that would force him to work the plantations of the Congo people, descendants of the African American slaves who colonized Liberia almost a century earlier. When Togar's section draws to a shocking close, the novel jumps again, back to America in 1827, to the children of Yasmine Wright, who leave a Virginia plantation with their mother for Liberia, where they're promised freedom and a chance at self-determination by the American Colonization Society. The Wrights begin their section by fleeing the whip and by its close, they are then the ones who wield it. With each new section, the novel uncovers fresh hope and resonating heartbreak, all based on historical fact.

In Dream Country, Shannon Gibney spins a riveting tale of the nightmarish spiral of death and exile connecting America and Africa, and of how one determined young dreamer tries to break free and gain control of her destiny.