Brian McGuire is a teenager who is forced to move from Beverly Hills to a predominantly black neighborhood in Brooklyn. Brian suffers culture shock when he's forced to move in with his grandfather Harry Clooney, a Brooklyn store owner. Brian is transplanted to Brooklyn where he moves in with his feisty but loving grandfather Harry and finds that life in Brooklyn is different from the sun and surf existence of California as demonstrated by his new friends: Anthony "The Snake" Johnson, Luther Cain and Terrance Dean, and his streetwise teacher Miss Harriet Winners.