In this award winning novel, an Amish girl, Esther feels like "one black bird against the sky" in her plain clothes. So when she's forced to attend public school in Pennsylvania she's terrified. She fears the new world she must enter, fears the way she sticks out next to other kids, and--most of all--fears she may do what her brother did: run away and join the sinful but great wide world she's only just discovering.