Being twelve isn't easy, especially if you're Neva Beane. She knows she beautiful and smart but there are so many confusing signals in everyday life about everything including the changes taking place in her pre-adolescent body and her admiration for the activist on the block. It's especially hard for Neva to figure all of this out while her musician parents are on tour in Europe and she and her brother are left at home with their very traditional grandparents. The household descends into inter-generational turmoil and Neva is left with the only thing that gives her comfort, her dictionary. There, she chronicles the world through the meanings of words. While the pages of her beloved dictionary reveal truths about what's happening around her, Neva discovers the best way to define herself.