It's an Aardvark-Eat-Turtle World takes place in Woodstock, New York, a small community whose population swells to nearly 15,000 with summer tourists, near the end of summer. Woodstock was the location of the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969 which helped mold the lifestyle of Rosie's mother, Mindy, and her boyfriend, Jim, who where youths during that period. Mindy still dresses in a "Woodstock" style, and the young protagonist, Rosie, has learned a love of folk music from her father and her collections of folk music and black literature form a picture of a sensitive and loving young lady.