It's the mid-1980s. Julia Scheeres and her adopted brother David are sixteen years old and have just moved to rural Indiana, a landscape of cottonwood trees and trailer parks--and a racism neither of them is prepared for. While Julia is white, her close relationship with David, who is black, makes them both outcasts. At home, a distant mother--more involved with her church's missionaries than with her own children--and a violent father only compound their problems. When high-school hormones, bullying, and a deep-seated restlessness prove too much to bear, they are packed off to a Christian boot camp in the Dominican Republic. Surrounded by natural beauty, the Escuela Caribe is governed by a disciplinary regime that demands its teens repent for their sins--which few of them are aware they've committed. How they made it through with heart and soul intact is told here with candor and humor.--From publisher description.