Book One opens in 1912 and introduces 11-year-old Francie Nolan, who lives in the Williamsburg tenement neighborhood of Brooklyn with her 10-year-old brother Cornelius ("Neeley" for short) and their parents, Johnny and Katie.
In Book Three, the Nolans settle into their new home, and the children (now seven and six) begin to attend the squalid, overcrowded public school next door.