Carol, a twelve-year-old Spanish-American girl who was raised in New York, travels with her mother to Spain in the spring of 1938, at the height of the Civil War. Separated from her father whom she adores, a pilot in the International Brigades, Carol arrives in her mother's home village and transforms the secretive family environment. Her innocence and rebellious nature drive her at first to reject a world that is at once new and foreign. But she soon becomes friends with Maruja, the village teacher and this, together with the lessons in life learned from her grandfather and her love for a local boy, Tomiche, take her on an unforgettable and bittersweet journey into the world of adulthood.