Alice isn't happy to leave Ohio and move to Rainbow, Georgia to help take care of her ailing grandmother. It doesn't help that when they get there grandma is worse than they thought she was. Alice just wants her absentee dad to come and take them back home. She wants her brother Eddie to be back in Ohio where he can go to the school for the deaf and not public school. She meets her grandma's neighbor Miss Millie and starts walking her dog Clarence. Unfortunately, Clarence won't walk with anyone other than Miss Millie, so Alice actually walks Clarence and Miss Millie. On their daily walks she gets to know her 94-year-old African American neighbor. Miss Millie's mom was a slave and her brother was killed in the 1906 Atlanta race riots. Miss Millie has lots of stories and on their walks Alice is exposed to the racism Millie experiences. These things open Alice's eyes to the world around her and make her just a bit more aware. 

I liked the relationship between Alice and Miss Millie. I think intergenerational relationships are great for kids. They should be exposed to older people and learn how life was in the past. I also think that the fact that Alice was white and Miss Millie black allowed for more education than most. Miss Millie is able to illustrate through her stories just how difficult life was for black people in the South. I also really liked the inclusion of Eddie, the deaf brother, as he was able to show how deaf people were treated during the 1960s. I would say it was pretty accurate that most people probably just talk louder around the hearing impaired even to this day. I think Miss Millie's most important lesson was the one about the McHale family though. They were a family of bullies, but weren't all bad. Miss Millie explains to Alice that some behaviors are learned and can be unlearned. It is a good lesson that not everyone is who they come from.