It is 1912. Francie Nolan is 11 years old and lives in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York with her family: her brother, Cornelius ("Neeley"), and their parents, Johnny and Katie, children of immigrants from Ireland and Austria respectively. The family lives on the money Katie earns as a cleaner, who is determined to offer her children a better fate, and the little that the children make doing various jobs; they cannot rely on the father, who is an alcoholic and cannot keep a job. To escape her limited, poor world, Francie turns to her imagination and her love for books.