Jeanette Tracy, known to her friends as Ginger, is an 8-year-old orphan living in a New York slum apartment with her "Uncle Rex", an aging Shakespearean actor.

Their poor but happy existence is framed by lines from famous Shakespearean plays which they recite to each other; their favorite is the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.

One day, a probation officer comes to the apartment and threatens to take Ginger away if she doesn't stop skipping school and Uncle Rex remains unemployed.

Your pen pal and fan, W.C."[4] The second was from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who wrote: "To my little friend, Jane, God bless you, I know you are going to be one of our greatest stars in America.

[3] Calling Withers a "child prodigy", The Cincinnati Enquirer listed the ways she differed from Shirley Temple, being older and playing a tomboy.

[8] The Salt Lake Tribune noted Withers' "versatility" in the film, explaining: "She goes from a street fight into Juliet's balcony scene with the ease of a veteran player.

She is alternately hoydenish and lovable, gagging and demure; she burlesques Greta Garbo and Zasu Pitts and enacts the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet without making it ridiculous.

... Miss Withers' scenes are of three kinds, those in which she is precocious and amusing because possessed of a sophistication beyond her years; those in which she is a child and charming for her childish ways and those where she really acts.

[10]The New York Times praised the film as "a fresh, human and warm photoplay, rich in natural values, sensitively directed by Lewis Seiler (who used to teach school in Brooklyn and should know children) and played for all it is worth by an excellent cast".

[2] Though the review said the script borders on a Cinderella fable, it called the dialogue "bright" and the plot elements "cleverly selected for their comic or sentimental values".

[2] The New York Daily News agreed that the film had a Cinderella-like storyline, but reported that the theater audience heartily enjoyed hearing the stream of slang issue from the mouth of the "charming" Withers, who "refers to people as guys, muggs and lugs" and "calls her Park Ave. benefactress 'sourpuss' and her stiff-necked friends 'a bunch of frozen pans'".

[9] The New York Daily News pointed out an error in rear-projection for a scene in which Mr. Parker is taking Uncle Rex to his house in a car during a rainstorm.