In intertwined stories, A Ladder of Bones tells a series of narratives that take place in West Africa, Canada, the United States and the Caribbean. Siaka becomes a child soldier in Sierra Leone after being compelled to shoot his six-year-old brother. Melvin witnesses the murder of his parents by young Liberian soldiers. As a toddler, Timothy survives by sucking at his dead mother’s breast, while Iona, a rebellious Jamaican girl, narrowly escapes rape at the hands of her drug-addicted mother’s lover.