Ronnelle Khan is no alien to moving day, yet life seems to crumble as her family immigrates to the United States of America, where people talk funny, look funny, and act funny. She never knows why things happen, just that they do. She wonders what the "papers" are, lives in a stranger's basement, starts a journal of guidelines on how to speak like a proper American, and befriends a woman with hair as wild as her life. Feeling her first bite of winter, Ronnelle never imagined the new world could be so lonely.