For Arturo, summertime in Miami means playing basketball until dark, sipping mango smoothies, and keeping cool under banyan trees. And maybe a few shifts as junior lunchtime dishwasher at Abuelas restaurant. Maybe. But this summer also includes Carmen, a cute poetry enthusiast who moves into Arturos apartment complex and turns his stomach into a deep fryer. He almost doesnt notice the smarmy land developer who rolls into town and threatens to change...

After a fight at school leaves Marcus facing suspension, Marcus's mother takes him and his younger brother, who has Down syndrome, to Puerto Rico to visit relatives they do not remember or have never met, and while there Marcus starts searching for his father, who left their family ten years ago and is somewhere on the island.