The topical young adult debut by National Book Award and Newbery Honor-winning author Thanhhà Lại. Hằng doesn't believe in adventures. There are steps that must be done, and once done, another step awaits. The last step, after six years of minute planning by her grandmother, is a bus ride away. In A-ma-ri-lo her baby brother has to be waiting. In her imaginings, he is always waiting. National Book Award and Newbery Honor-winning author Thanhhà Lại makes her young adult debut in this deeply moving story of courage, redemption, friendship, family and new beginnings.

Through a series of poems, a young girl chronicles the life-changing year of 1975, when she, her mother, and her brothers leave Vietnam and resettle in Alabama.