Roberta Forest is a bright and rebellious Black thirteen-year-old living in Philadelphia at the height of the Watergate scandal. After a nun at her school makes a racist remark after Roberta criticizes Jefferson for being a slaveholder, she spirals into doubt about her religion and the adults in her life. Roberta copes with life’s difficulties and her parent’s struggling marriage through her poetry, writing, and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. When disappointment with her ineligibility in her school’s essay contest puts Roberta into an enraged confrontation with her mother, familial truths are revealed.
