by Marcia E. Barss (Author)
Fourteen-year-old Shanti's home is in a village in eastern India, where her parents work in the rice fields. She attends school in a town forty kilometres away and hopes to become a teacher. But while she is home on vacation, her mother gives birth to another girl. Shanti's father declares she must leave school to care for her baby sister. He also makes plans for Shanti to be married as soon as possible, despite the law against girls under eighteen being forced into marriage.
Will Shanti defy her father and village traditions, and find a way to stay in school and postpone marriage? Can she and her friends convince him, and their community, that educating girls will benefit the village? Follow Shanti and her friends as they fight for their right to determine their own future.