Growing up in British Guiana in the 1950s, Sharon Maas has everything a shy child with a vivid imagination could wish for. She spends her days studying bugs in the backyard of her family home on Lamaha Street, eating fresh mangos straight from the tree and losing herself in books tucked up on her granny's lap, surrounded by her uncles and aunts. But Sharon feels alone in a house full of adults. Her parents are divorced and her father is busy campaigning for British Guiana's independence. With her mother often away for work, there's a void in Sharon's heart, and she craves rules and structure. The books she devours give her a glimpse of life in a faraway country: England. And although none of the characters in the books she reads look like her, her insatiable curiosity eventually leads Sharon to beg to be sent to boarding school, just like her literary heroes. Reality comes as a shock.