When fourteen-year-old Benita's wealthy family goes bankrupt as a result of the Depression, they go from their luxurious life in Guayaquil, Ecuador, to a primitive island, with the wild scheme of starting a coconut plantation.
Getting caught shoplifting leads fifteen-year-old Mia to a greater understanding of herself, sympathy for her unmarried mother, and a job in a college laboratory which not only pleases her ailing scientist grandfather, but lets her glimpse a possible future brighter than any she had imagined.
When fourteen-year-old Benita's wealthy family goes bankrupt as a result of the Depression, they go from their luxurious life in Guayaquil, Ecuador to a primitive island, with the wild scheme of starting a coconut plantation.
