Twelve-year-old Robert Jacklin comes face to face with bigotry, racism, and brutality when he is uprooted from England moves to Zimbabwe with his family. Twelve-year-old Robert Jacklin comes face-to-face with bigotry, racism, and brutality when he is uprooted from England and moves to Zimbabwe with his family. Robert is enrolled in one of the country s most elite boys boarding schools. Newly integrated, the school is a microcosm of the horrible problems faced by the struggling new country in the wake of a bloody civil war. The white boys want their old country back and torment the black Africans. Robert must make careful alliances. His decision to join the ranks of the more powerful white boys has a devastating effect on his conscience and emerging manhood. "