In a future Chicago, sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she's an anomaly who doesn't fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in isn't perfect after all.

An abridged version of the tale of Sara Crewe, a pupil at Miss Minchin's London school, who is left in poverty when her father dies but is later rescued by a mysterious benefactor.