When she is eleven years old Martine is orphaned and sent to live with her grandmother on a game reserve in South Africa. Her grandmother seems strangely unwelcoming and Martine has a difficult time settling in at her new school where she is conspicuously an outsider. But she has an ally in Tendai - one of the keepers on the reserve from whom she learns the lore and survival techniques of the bush and in Grace - who instantly senses there is something special about Martine. There are secrets about Sawubona (the reserve) just waiting to be revealed and rumours too about a fabled white giraffe - a trophy for hunters everywhere. One night Martine lonely and feeling slightly rebellious too looks out of her window and see a young albino giraffe - silver tinged with cinnamon in the moonlight. This is the beginning of her mysterious and magical adventures - her discovery of her gift of healing and a secret valley that she travels to with the giraffe where shell find clues about her past and future. Above all its is a heart-warming story full of charm and atmosphere and Martines sheer delight in her giraffe friend and the fantastic landscape which is theirs to explore.
