 Seven-year-old Jalil, abandoned at an early age in Maine, finds himself adopted into a family that lives in the heart of urban Philadelphia Pennsylvania. How can everything that he has come to know change so instantly? How does he situate into this new world, and these new people? There s Betty and Robert- his new mother and father. How will they define those titles that should carry meanings of warmth and security for him? Will his new brother, 14-year-old Tommy, who until now has been the only child, overcome the expected jealousies and share, what has been his world alone, with the newly arrived usurper? Can Jalil negotiate the world outside where even a trip to the corner store can be filled with unexpected hazards? Then there are the mysteries of the basement. The basement, the darkness, the sounds, and Uncle Adisa who lives there.