It's 1942 and the United States is deep into World War II. At home, amid adjustments to the hardships and heartaches of war, Kay Ann Franklin is losing a lonely battle caring for her terminally ill mother and her five-year-old twins, one stricken with polio and the other with chicken pox. Worried and exhausted, she has little left to give her baby daughter and her war-absorbed husband. When a colored girl appears at her back door offering to help, Kay Ann welcomes her but holds slight hope that the tiny, crippled Say can make a difference in their situation.

To her surprise, the...