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Summary

Loung Ung was five years old in Cambodia at the start of the Pol Pot Regime. They were seen as very wealthy, and Loung was spoiled among her brothers and sisters. Her father was a middle-class government worker, and thus a prime target for the Khmer Rouge; a group of soldiers that follow one man, Pol Pot. Since they have won the war they have taken power over the country. They wish to cleanse the country of all foreign influences and wish for all to evacuate the city to work on farms in the countryside. Those who refuse are killed, along with many government CEOs and capitalists. Loung, and her many siblings had to flee their home, setting out with no warning and no destination. They had to leave almost everything behind and pretend to be a farming family, but were eventually sent to a work camp.

After a string of work camps, Loung and her family had almost grown used to the constant hunger and tiredness, the fear of and separation from every other member of their villages, and to hiding their emotions so as to not appear weak. Soon, Loung’s teenaged brothers, Khouy and Meng, and sister, Keav, were sent away to a different work camp. Keav died shortly after her arrival from food poisoning, which was a common way to die. Then Loung’s father was taken away and killed. Loung’s mother forced Loung, her sister Chou, and her remaining brother Kim to run away, leaving herself and her baby daughter Geak behind. Loung and Chou, too afraid to split up as they had been ordered, arrived at a child work camp where they stayed together until Loung was sent to a different camp to be trained as a child soldier. Soon, Ma and Geak are assumed to be stealing, because the soldiers "took them away."

Eventually, Loung, Meng, and Meng's wife Eang escape to Vietnam, then Thailand, then finally to America. Loung's life in America and her eventual return to Cambodia are chronicled in her second book, Lucky Child.