In the fall of 1942, Claudia Donaldson, a typical teenager looking forward to her senior in high school, soon learns the year she envisioned is not to be. Her professor father accepts an administrative position at Topaz, a Japanese-American internment camp in Utah's desert, and her mother is will be a teacher there. Leaving her friends behind, Claudia and her family of four live in barracks with other Caucasian camp staff. They endure dust storms, cafeteria food, and communal bathrooms. Perhaps Claudia's greatest sacrifice is moving from a high school of 300 students to a class of twenty-six in the tiny town of Delta, where the academic and extracurricular choices are slim. Claudia overcomes those shortcomings, gathering a large circle of wise, funny friends from the compound's youth fellowship group. Observing and unconsciously absorbing the ongoing examples of grace under pressure around, Claudia garners the strength and maturity to pursue her dream of a musical career. As "The Gem of the Desert" follows Claudia through the trials and joys of her senior year, it also depicts the isolation and gloom of the Japanese-American people confined in camps, a part of history that needs to be told.