When Soumchi, an eleven-year-old boy growing up in British-occupied Jerusalem just after World War II, receives a bicycle as a gift from his Uncle Zemach, he is overjoyedeven if it is a girl's bicycle. Ignoring the taunts of other boys in his neighborhood, he dreams of riding far away from them, out of the city and across the desert, toward the heart of Africa. But first he wants to show his new prize to his friend Aldo. In the tradition of such memorable characters as Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caulfield, Amos Oz's Soumchi is fresh, funny, and always engaging.