Walter Myers describe the history of his ancestors, particularly his great-great-granduncle, a slave in the years before the civil war, his mother who died while trying to deliver her youngest child, and his step-mother who defied her white German family to marry black men twice. After the first wife of his wife married for a second time and settled in New Your City, she decided to get her two daughters from his first husband, and in the later months decide to take the boy as well.
He soon settled with his step-mother’s family in Harlem and turned out to be a naughty and extremely closed to his step-mother. He loved his new residence, for its eclecticism and music. He grows to be a naught kid with a slight speech impediment which doesn’t really affect his confidence. He began to develop an interest in reading while working on his speech at the same time. He would grow angry on being made fun at of his speech. Due to this, he got involved in a fight, which ended up with him being slapped by the teacher, who was further complained against by his mother. The teacher ultimately failed him in 4 subjects.
He gets into another fight, in which he ruptures his appendix and is hospitalized. In similar incidents, he gets into more accidents, one of which he lies about by blaming on his mother. Meanwhile, his new teacher recognizes the poet in him and encourages him to perform better academically.
Around his 12th birthday, brother of his adoptive father dies, leaving his father depressed. This affected both the narrator and his mother deeply affected. The narrator also gets in a Rapid Advancement class and begins to score good results. He decides to write, but fails at it as he didn’t find his surroundings to be interesting enough. He also begins to recognize his identity as a black, and also the fact that he was poor would contribute to his future.
Unable to acknowledge his artistic side due to toxic masculinity, he begins to lapse in depression and stops going to school for long periods of time. He also gets in a creative writing course, which helps him discover more in literature. He ends up missing most of the school and with no prospects of a higher-education or career, he enlists in army. After some years, as he shunts from job to job, he realizes that he didn’t want his current situation for him when he was young and decides to start writing again. Eventually, he makes a career as a writer for children, which his father finds hard to accept, but his mother is proud of.
