McGuigan, Mary Ann

Sixteen-year-old Morgan is a privileged only child who finds herself torn between a mundane, comfortable life, and an exciting, dangerous one she is just discovering by making her way to Brooklyn where she finds out the truth about her family and meets people who are suffering and have nowhere to go.

In 1963 in the Bronx, New York, eighth-graders Fiona and Yolanda help one another face hard decisions at home despite family and social opposition to their interracial friendship, but Fiona is on her own when popular classmates start paying attention to her and give her a glimpse of both a different way of life and a new kind of hatefulness.

In 1963, when thirteen-year-old Fiona runs away from home and ends up reunited with her former classmate Yolanda in an all-black neighborhood of the Bronx, their interracial friendship gives rise to both comfort and controversy.

Making friends with Liz, a college student who sings in Lincoln Park, helps fourteen-year-old Eileen McDonaugh realize that she has the ability to face the various problems of her poor family.