In search of answers to her troubled past, Sparrow's sixteen-year-old runaway mother Serenity dies giving birth to her in a ditch along the Yellowhead Highway. The tiny girl lands with a family that operates Tootsie Town, a ragtag amusement park on Winnipeg's outskirts. Her foster father Dex's soft heart can't protect his new girl from the dirty tasks forced on her by his wife Didi and their children Linzi and Logan. Imagination is Sparrow's solace. She and her school friend Dusty exchange stories and their plans to escape. And though she knows nothing about her birth mother, she sends her pleas to heaven through a doll named Stinky Thing, believing she hears their reply. After Dex secretly teaches her how to drive, twelve-year-old Sparrow steals his truck and takes off to find the place she was born. She has something more to tell her mother. Prayers to Serenity tells of a mother who gives her life asking a question her daughter must live to answer, of love breaking free and finding its way home.