Between an alcoholic mother and two absent fathers, Paris and her brother Malcolm have seen their share of foster homes, and none of them have been good. So Paris is reluctant to trust the Lincolns, no matter how nice they seem. She’s also not happy that she and Malcolm have been separated. But the Lincolns turn out to be far different from Paris’s other foster parents. They seem to genuinely want her with them. Their two young sons treat her like an older sister, and even their other foster daughter, a teenager, is welcoming if not warm. At school Paris makes her first good friend, and despite her wariness, Paris has to admit that things are looking up. Paris’s mother is even trying to pull her life together, a fact with unexpected consequences for Paris in Nikki Grimes’s story about a biracial (African American/white) girl whose newfound security leads to the discovery of strengths she never knew she had. (Ages 10–13)