Frankie Addams is an awkward, moody 12-year-old tomboy whose only friends are her young cousin John Henry and her black housekeeper Berenice.

Co-starring as a drunken soldier who tries to take advantage of the vulnerable Frankie is former child actor Dick Moore, making his last film appearance.

Feeling rejected when her older brother goes off on his honeymoon without inviting her along, Frankie (Julie Harris) runs away from her middle-class Southern home.

She endures several other adolescent traumas, not least of which is the sudden death of her bespectacled young cousin John Henry (Brandon deWilde).

With the help of warm-hearted housekeeper Berenice Sadie Brown (Ethel Waters), Frankie eventually makes an awkward transition to young womanhood.