Six-year-old Jalil, abandoned in Maine at a young age, is adopted into a family who lives in the heart of urban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. How can everything that he has come to know change so instantly? How does he situate into this new world and these new people? How will Betty and Robert, his new mother and father, define those titles that should carry meanings of warmth and security for him? Will his new brother, 14-year-old Tommy, until now an only son, overcome the expected jealousies and share with the newly-arrived usurper all that has been his world alone? Can Jalil negotiate the world outside where even a trip to the corner store can be filled with unexpected hazards? Then there are the mysteries of the basement. The basement, the darkness, the sounds--and Uncle Adisa, who lives there.
—Aaron Blandon