Shortly after the Proffitts arrive in the Chicago slums from North Carolina, the stepmother leaves the family and fourteen-year-old Marvella becomes the sole support for her blind father and the four younger children.
When adversity makes sixteen-year-old Littabelle sole support of her two aged grandparents, her desperate situation teaches her about law, human nature, and her future.
Kitty Dale, whose mother does not want to deal with a child, or admit one into her new life, spends the summer with Aunt Petal and eventually learns to accept her mother's weaknesses.
A father in the Smokey Mountains of North Carolina is dying. His daughter promises him that she will keep the family intact. Honoring that commitment is as tough as it is touching.
Hoping to expunge neighborhood prejudice and to do something everyone else has failed to do, a twelve year-old desperately tries to teach her retarded twin.
