Not quite in the center of Africa lies a tiny land called Kiwanja whose people have lived in undisturbed peace for many thousands of years. But, times have changed in the outside world: satellites spy on everyone because anything that isn't possessed is a threat to those who don't posses it. But one thing that hasn't changed is war.Thirteen-year-old Dakota is the son of Nathi, a Kiwanjian bush pilot who flies an ancient C-47. Dakota is skilled in take-offs and landings from dirt airstrips in the dead of night, skimming hilltops to avoid radar, and dodging enemy aircraft. Dakota has only known war in his life, war in which children kill other children commanded by adult "generals." One side wants to rule the land to "bring it into the future," the other claims to be fighting for freedom and ancient traditional ways of life, but both bring only terror and death to the innocent people caught in the middle. Meanwhile, in the United States, Nicole Neale, a divorced single-parent with an almost-thirteen-year-old son named Zack, fights a more civilized war to keep her job with a small corporation that manufactures many things from boys' action-figures to military uniforms... though much of the work is done by children in dirty, third-world sweatshops. Will winning her war in boardrooms save her son from what seems like enslavement to video games, material values, the lure of money, and possibly drugs? And, why should her company, subsidized by the U.S. Government, have any interest in a tiny African country? The only thing Nicole knows about Kiwanja is that its people make beautiful boots.
