When you are a Black family in 1961 Los Angeles, how do you protect your white neighbors from a real-life bogeyman living in their midst?

"For the very first time my dark skin felt uncomfortable on my body."

The Coles are a Black family from a small southern town who are trying to reap the golden harvest of jobs and a better lifestyle that Los Angeles, California proclaims during the era of President Kennedy's "New Frontier". When these pioneers move to an all-white neighborhood, they discover that their kind is not welcome. Poignant and humorous, this coming-of-age story is narrated by 12-year-old Samuel Scott Cole whose innocent and imaginative observations impart how this life-changing event affects him and his parents.

Before moving Samuel lived in a neighborhood where skin color didn't matter, a place where kids played cowboys and Indians, competed in lunch pail wars, and talked about werewolves, molemen, vampires, and the bogeyman. Samuel doesn't fit in to this new community and is being ostracized and facing bigotry. Through it all Samuel manages to make one true friend he can rely on. The two unexpectedly encounter a real-life bogeyman and murderer who lurks within the neighborhood.