Maia, orphaned at 13, is unhappy to be staying with relatives hundreds of miles up the Amazon. She becomes friends with an English boy who lives with the locals. They are forced to flee upriver, pursued by an assortment of eccentric characters. It is 1910 and Maia, tragically orphaned at 13, has been sent from England to start a new life with distant relatives in Manaus, hundreds of miles up the Amazon. She is accompanied by an eccentric and mysterious governess who has secret reasons of her own for making the journey. Both soon discover an exotic world bursting with new experiences in this highly colourful, joyous and award-winning adventure.