In this story, the central character is April Bright, a 9-year-old schoolgirl and Brownie Scout in Philadelphia just after World War II. In a warm and friendly family story, against a Pennsylvania setting, the author touches lightly, and with integrity, on racial divisions as they affect dark-skinned April, her life at school, her friendships, her scout troop. At a picnic she first encounters racial prejudice in lonely little Phyllis, but her gift for friendship overrides even this, and she makes a friend of Phyllis, too.