The novel is about Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern, three sisters, visiting their mother in Oakland, California , during the summer of In the year of its inception, the book was a National Book Award finalist for young people's literature. Cecile never calls Fern by her name, but always refers to her as "little girl. However, Cecile had her reason It was in Cecile's kitchen that the girl met Sister Mukumbu.
There, the three sisters get taught about the movement. They are taught the importance of feeding and helping poor African Americans, and also in protecting African American communities. The Black Panther member Bobby Hutton has been shot and killed by police, and one of their founding members, Huey Newton , has been wrongfully jailed.
The children at the center will soon participate in a rally to protest these injustices. After a day trip to San Francisco , the sisters return home to find their mother Cecile and two members of the Black Panther Party being arrested. Cecile tells the police she has no children, for she doesn't want the girls to be involved, so the girls pretend to live next door.
Soon a friend from the center, Hirohito, comes for the girls and allows them to stay with him and his mother until Cecile returns, the girls perform a poem their mother wrote, which they found while cleaning the kitchen after her arrest. After their recital, Fern takes the microphone and tells the Black Panthers how she saw one of their most vocal members, with the police, which gets him in trouble with the party members.
At the rally, the sisters see their mother has been released from jail, and return home with her. Though Delphine and Cecile's relationship remains strained, Cecile tells Delphine how she lost her mother at the age of eleven and had a rough life thereafter.
