Bequeathed by nature with a survival instinct an animal is most at home in its natural surroundings. Here, it will use its skill and cunning to engage in activities to realise the greatest rewards. But when captured by man and imprisoned in a zoo is its mind also made a prisoner? Vinny is a street child who is forced to live in the zoo where he finds greater trust among the animals than on the streets of the city where his misfortune began. Winning their warmth and acceptance he soon realizes his unique power to enter their world and experience their past. Moussa, the lion, brings Africa to life and Vinny learns of the struggles of her people against men who came on tall ships to capture, imprison and haul them away from their motherland. Raja proves to be a headstrong tiger bent on his own unsubmissive ways. Not the sharing kind his growls are always timed to bring discord at the very moment that Vinny is soothingly drifting away into another world. Kamala, on the other hand, is all elephant ears and takes Vinny on a Shikar in the Maharaja's kingdom to bag Old Stripe himself, as the White Sahib puts it. In his waking moment Vinny must leave his dreams behind and deal with the real world. He must interact with his own kind and endure the struggles of daily life. Should Vinny leave the zoo and his only true friends and place his trust in man? After all, it was his fellow man who deprived him of a child's happiness.
Vinny, a young boy, is born into poverty and faces tremendous difficulties in his early life. After a tough early childhood, he is estranged from his mother and fights for his survival. He begins working for a 'sweetie van' far away from his own village, and travels down the path that changes the course of his life.
When the 'sweetie van' that Vinny is keeping watch over is stolen, he is left abandoned in the city zoo, and is forced to live in his new surroundings. He befriends the lion, Mousa, and has a revealing dreamin which he experiences the lion's memory of Africa. This stange and powerful ability allows Vinny to learn from the animals throughout the zoo, slipping away into distant lands and seeing things he'd never imagined. The dream world is magnificent, but when Vinny is awake, his plight is all to real.
Struggling to get through his days, Vinny realizes that he can't simply escape into his dreams if he wants meaningful change in his life. And through his experiences transform him, he refuses to let hardship define him.