In the summer of 2011, just after Nour loses her father to cancer, her mother moves Nour and her sisters from New York City back to Syria to be closer to their family. In order to keep her father’s spirit as she adjusts to her new home, Nour tells herself their favorite story --- the tale of Rawiya, a 12th-century girl who disguised herself as a boy in order to apprentice herself to a famous mapmaker. When a stray shell destroys Nour’s house and almost takes her life, she and her family are forced to choose: stay and risk more violence, or flee across seven countries of the Middle East and North Africa in search of safety --- along the very route Rawiya and her mapmaker took 800 years before in their quest to chart the world.