Eleanor Roosevelt Dingman (Ellie) is an 11-year-old girl who lives on Witch Tree Lane, in Spectacle, New York.

Holly and Ellie have been given a hard time by the popular girls in their school (the Sparrows), but since the recent death of the late president John F. Kennedy, it has temporarily stopped.

Ellie's life is turned upside down when her mother, the self-proclaimed "Doris Day" Dingman, decides to go into show business.

Overcome with grief for the newly widowed mother, Jackie Kennedy, Doris realizes that life is short; she goes to New York to "become established" and leaves her children and husband to fend for themselves.

Doris's move to New York forces Ellie to take care of her family and deal with the absence of her already distant mother and a father who, though hard working and loving, is often absent.