At the time she begins writing, Julie is sixteen; however, during the main plot of her story, she is merely twelve years old: "a plucky, resourceful, near-genius with a wobbly home life".

Julie and Ishmael discuss a variety of topics, including the hidden mythology that drives our modern industrial and agricultural civilization, which disparages the foraging lifestyle of other societies; the evolution of humans by natural selection; the rise of social hierarchies; and the differing values between traditional foraging societies versus modern civilization.

Julie eventually meets Art "Artie" Owens, born in the Belgian Congo (later Zaire), a friend of Ishmael who intends to help him return to the West African jungle.

Owens is a lifelong naturalist who grew up with Mokonzi Nkemi, the president of the Republic of Mali, a nation that has recently gained independence from Zaire.

Owens, meanwhile, became a dual citizen of Zaire and Belgium, traveling to the United States and attending Cornell University, where he met a student who introduced him to Ishmael.

She finally agrees to the potentially dangerous five-day trip and is drilled on how to act and be wary in African cities, including conversing with Mabili's leaders.

Upon meeting Nkemi, Julie claims that Ishmael is a gorilla who has gathered an American following of supporters who wish to see him successfully released back into the wild.

This, he claims, creates hierarchical social structures that, abandoning the cooperating ethos of Leavers, result in distress and conflict within the society, such as crime, suicide, poverty, famine, and senseless violence.

Ishmael also outlines his preference for the Leaver (or tribal) notion of law, which is generally unwritten knowledge of how to deal with undesirable behaviors within the tribe.

[2] Eventually, Ishmael's teachings turn toward the subject of formal education, which he argues is merely a way to keep children out of the work force and is otherwise unnecessary because humans learn on their own, naturally following their own interests and picking up information necessary to operate in their culture.

When Ishmael asserts that humans must strive to belong to functional and secure communities, Julie asks for concrete examples of how this can be achieved.

Ishmael praises the utter strength of human innovation, citing positive examples from the Industrial Revolution and claims that this will lead, and has already led, to a diversity of new models, including the Sudbury school, the Gesundheit!