Like every fifth grader, Esm Raji Codell spent her days within the small world of school, neighborhood, and family. But this small world provides rich material for the often hilarious, always engrossing stories and vignettes in this book. Esm tells us about: the night she and her mother became "egg vigilantes" against an illegally parked car; her freewheeling first school, where kids could choose disco dancing instead of math; her dangerous neighborhood, which her father made seem friendly and wondrous; the Passover dinner when she stole a matzoh right out from under a rabbi; the awe-inspiring, life-threatening Chicago snowstorms; and lessons about love from tea-reading gypsies and Popeye cartoons.