In 1993 the west African country of Sierra Leone is torn by civil war with rebel forces seeking to overthrow the government. Twelve-year-old Ishmael Beah and his brother Junior live in the small village of Mogbwemo with their stepmother. Their parents are separated. The boys and a friend are part of a rap and dance group entered a talent show in Mattru Jong, a day’s walk away. Once the boys arrive in Mattru Jong, however, they learn that rebel forces have overrun Mogbwemo. Ongoing violence forces the boys to stay in Mattru Jong.

Eventually, the rebels, who rape and kill indiscriminately, come to Mattru Jong. The town’s inhabitants flee, including Ishmael and Junior, their friend, and the other three boys from the hip-hop group. After desperate wandering and a frightening encounter with rebels, the six boys arrive at a village where one of them has an aunt and uncle. The boys work in the fields, until the rebels attack that village, too. Ishmael and one other boy become separated from the rest.

After hiding in the forest, Ishmael decides to seek safety elsewhere. Leaving his remaining friend, he gets lost in a deep forest where he lives alone for a month. Eventually, he meets six other boys, some of whom he knew when he attended school in Mattru Jong. The seven boys journey toward the coast to get away from the fighting. When they learn that Ishmael’s family and other people from the Mattru Jong area may be staying at a nearby village they go there, but they arrive just as a rebel massacre of the entire village has begun. The many charred corpses presumably include Junior and the rest of Ishmael’s family.

Soon, the boys are taken into custody by government soldiers and transported to a town being used as a military base. When rebels threaten that town, too, the boys become child soldiers. Ishmael spends the next two years witnessing many horrible things as well as committing many horrible acts himself. After this two-year period of horror ends, the unit commander turns over Ishmael and some of the other young soldiers to aid workers, who will attempt to reintegrate the boys into civilian life. The boys begin this process at an institution in Freeport, Sierra Leone’s capital, where Ismael and the other boys struggle to adjust to their new life.

Eventually, however, the boys start to adapt. The institution’s director is so impressed with Ishmael that he recommends him for a conference in New York. At the conference, Ishmael meets a professional storyteller with whom he stays in touch after he returns to Sierra Leone. When the rebels take control of Freeport and begin killing civilians, Ishmael flees the country. He will eventually make his way back to New York, where the storyteller will become his new mother.