Alongside men she doesn’t know, in an Afghan village that is not her home, 13-year-old Parvana buries her father. This village, along with many others in Afghanistan, is all too familiar with death because of the ongoing war. The Taliban does not take kindly to women who venture out alone, so Parvana dresses as a boy and wears her hair cut short. She calls herself Kaseem, and the men at the funeral believe her to be a boy. One of the men invites her to stay with his family, and she follows because she has nowhere else to go. She gathers the few supplies she and her father carried on their journey from Kabul and follows the man through the bomb-damaged village to his mud hut. The man and his wife invite Parvana to stay in the village and make her home with them, but she knows she must continue on her journey to find her family—her mother, sisters Nooria and Maryam, and baby brother Ali.

Parvana agrees to stay for a time and returns to her father’s grave to pile more rocks on top of it. The rocks not only mark his grave but will also deter people from digging up his bones for money.