It's 1833, and, Bernadette Savard, an orphaned white teenager, longs for an education. Taken in as a helper to a growing family in Canterbury, Connecticut, she plans to attend the nearby female seminary founded by Prudence Crandall. But Miss Crandall has opened the seminary doors to "Little Misses of Color." The fury, violence and degradation heaped upon Miss Crandall and the African American girls challenge Bernadette's beliefs and dreams. A realistic portrait of attitudes and values of the era, this coming-of-age story raises questions about what it meant to be a woman and an African American in the early years of the nineteenth century.

In 1833 Bernadette come to Canterbury dreaming of a better education. She found herself in the middle of an uproar over girls of color being admitted to a female seminary in a time when education for white women was hard to come by.