Growing up in Montgomery, Alabama, in the 1950s, 12‑year‑old Alfa Merryfield and his 16‑year old sister, Zinnia, are living in the midst of the Montgomery boycott, something that effects their daily lives. Their great‑grandmother, Big Mama, works hard to scrape together the monthly rental payment for the home she shares with Alfa and Zinnia, who both contribute to the family income as well. In addition to working a part‑time job in a grocery store, Alfa studies hard in school and does well; he hopes to be a doctor when he grows up. When the children notice that part of their savings toward the monthly rent is regularly disappearing, Alfa uses scientific methods he has learned in school to help solve the mystery of the missing money. He then helps clear Big Mama’s name when she’s unjustly accused of stealing from the white family that employes her. This fast‑paced novel, set against the backdrop of a turbulent time in U.S. history, reads like a classic who‑dunnit. (Ages 8‑11)

Money is at the crux of the lives of Alfa, 12, Zinnia his sister, 16, and Big Mama, their great-grandmother. In this story set during the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956, Alfa can't ride the bus to avoid the money-grabbing white boys, then someone is stealing his family's savings, and, worst of all, Big Mama is accused of pilfering from her white employer. Inspired by the nonviolence of Martin Luther King, Jr., Alfa, a bright student headed for medical school, solves the dilemmas in this who-done-it and who-didn't-do it tale

It is June, 1956 in Montgomery, Alabama.

African-Americans are boycotting the bus company that had their neighbor, Mrs. Rosa Parks, arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man. Until they can sit wherever they wish on the bus, African-Americans are refusing to ride. They are walking.

For Alfa Merryfield, walking can be a problem. When he takes the bus he avoids the white boys who steal his pay for working in Mr. Greendale's grocery store. Losing the money is a disaster. He and his sister and his great-grandmother, who live together, need money to rent their two-room house. When Alfa loses his pay, they are short on the rent. To make matters worse, someone is stealing the money they save from where they hide it, and they, themselves, are accused of stealing two thousand dollars from a house where their grandmother is a cleaning woman.

Alfa wants to be a doctor and uses the scientific method to solve their theft problems. Alfa and his sister work hard to pay the rent and to find the thieves.

Alfa has learned, from the bus boycott and its leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to "walk the walk and talk the talk" in the spirit of nonviolence, and to respect himself and his dreams. As Alfa's own "Bus-Rider Blues" says about the world he knows: "It ain't never ever going to be the same."