It tells the story of the removal of the Navajos from their land by the U.S. Government – a 400-mile (640 km) forced winter march to Fort Sumner.

The first sentence of the book is "My mother bends over the plants near the red mesa..." It tells how Sara Nita's parents are worried because of the white men and how they are trying to steal the Diné's (the Navajo) land.

[2] School Library Journal wrote that the "story is rich with details of Native life gracefully woven into the telling of events.

[2] In their review, The Booklist said that the author's "use of phrases instead of dates to divide diary entries makes it easy to follow and keep track of major events, and this new addition to the Dear America series is an accessible, forthright view of a sad chapter in American history".

[3] Melissa Thompson wrote in The Lion and the Unicorn that while Turner's "novel is grounded in well-known historical events, and may be well intentioned, it misrepresents the interplay of political forces".