Chapters 1 - 3 Summary

Emily, the narrator and principle protagonist of the novel, is a fourteen-year-old African American girl who lives with her mother, Diane, and father in Cleveland, Ohio. She recently has learned that her maternal grandmother, Ola, has been diagnosed with cancer. She writes her grandmother a letter, mentioning that at her school they have been saying the Pledge of Allegiance to a blank wall because the flag is at the cleaner's. Ola writes back and invites Emily to visit her in the desert.

In Chapter Two, Emily relates how her mother Diane and her grandmother Ola had left Alabama in 1964 right after Emily's grandfather's funeral. Emily's mother tells her various family stories as they travel from Cleveland, Ohio, to Little Rock, California, by airplane. Emily imagines her mother at fourteen or the same age that Emily now is. They both have long...