Maizon Singh takes the biggest step of her life when she accepts a scholarship to boarding school and leaves her grandma and her best friend, Margaret, behind on Madison Street. There are only five black seventh grader among them. — Blue Hill is beautiful and Maizon has excellent teachers, small classes, and a friendly roommate. Yet something is ... more »missing. What is it that makes white people strange to her, that makes other black students threatening and safe at the same time? "We have to stick together, Maizon," one black girl says. "This school isn't about us--it's about them."

Maizon's not sure she belongs at Blue Hill after all. She worries about letting Grandma down. What if she doesn't succeed here? Can she go back to her old life on Madison Street?