It tells the story of three young Aboriginal girls: Molly (the author's mother), Daisy (Molly's half-sister), and Gracie (their cousin), who are forcibly removed from their families at Jigalong and taken to Moore River, but escape from the government settlement in 1931, and then trek over 1600 kilometers home by following the rabbit-proof fence, a massive pest-exclusion fence which crossed Western Australia from north to south.