Winifred, Fred for short, finds herself being picked up from school by Children and Youth Services and taken into foster care. Fred finds herself miles away from Philadelphia, in Lancaster, with a women she does not know, Margery, and a non-stop barking dog in the neighbors yard. Fred’s mother has been arrested for stealing someone else’s prescription drugs from the drug store where she works. Fred is a ‘glass is half full’ kind of girl where her mother is concerned and believes her mother’s story that it was all a misunderstanding, an accident. Mom will be in jail for awhile and so Fred will be in foster care for at least a month. Fred soon finds herself standing up to a bully and getting suspended from her new school on her first day, helping another girl (Delia AKA Lardvark) who is being bullied by the same girl, and the inhumanely treated dog (Toby) next door.

All the characters are so well developed with intriguing backstories slowly spooned out over the course of the story readers will not want to put this book down! Why is Margery so understanding? Why does the neighbor treat his dog so poorly? Why does Larkvark allow the daily bullying to continue?

“Maybe everyone hid pieces of themselves until it was safe to bring them out and show them to someone else.” (180)