Malcolm is the youngest child of Hmong refugees, and he was born over a decade after his youngest sibling, giving him a unique perspective on his complicated immigrant family.

In the first part of the story, we meet Malcolm as an elementary school kid through the eyes of the adults in his life--his parents and siblings, but also the white teachers at his Minnesota schools. As middle school begins, we encounter Malcolm in his own words, and suddenly we see that this "quiet, slow Hmong boy" is anything but. Malcolm is a gifted collector of his family's stories and tireless seeker of his own place within an evolving Hmong American culture, and his journey toward becoming a shaman like his grandparents before him is inspiring and revelatory.