More than anything, brilliant Teru longs to attend school with other girls. But in early 20th-century Japan, Teru is excluded because she is Ainu. Instead of writing, the Ainu—indigenous people from Japan’s Hokkaido island—pass down their traditions through yukar (oral poems). When Teru meets a Tokyo professor who has devoted his life to decoding yukar, Teru discovers a chance not only to prove her brilliance but to rewrite the fate of the Ainu.