Living in Spanish Harlem, New York, during World War II, Nilda Ramírez chronicles the four years when she moves from the innocence of childhood to the more complex confusion of young adulthood. She struggles with her Puerto Rican heritage and her American future, her devout Catholic mother and her Socialist stepfather, and the joy of new friendships and the loss of childhood friends and ideas. Most poignantly, she watches each of her four older brothers choose a life path, each of which leaves her behind in some way. The author's own black and white word-filled drawings intersperse the novel and express the mood of the story.