A young girl enlists the help of her friends to solve a robbery in her home that threatens to put her family's house into foreclosure, after her father leaves town to look for work and her mother takes in borders to make ends meet.

In Depression-era Louisiana, an African-American boy sets out to find his father, who has been sent to a labor camp after stealing food for his starving family, and struggles to cope with the shooting death of the faithful family dog.