Content Warning: This section includes discussion of racial discrimination, ableism, pet death, and grief.

Julia Marks, the protagonist, is a young girl who has often heard that she is short as if it were a problem that needed to be fixed. In response, Julia decided early on in life to stop using the word “short” altogether.

It is currently the beginning of summer and seven weeks after Julia’s dog, Ramon, passed away suddenly of heart disease. Julia misses Ramon terribly and has kept his collar on her nightstand. Also, there is a wooden carving of Ramon that her uncle, Jack, made for her several years ago. Julia’s parents are concerned about her grief over Ramon, and they try to help her move past it with sayings like, “Time heals all wounds” (6), but Julia still wakes up every morning thinking about Ramon, expecting to see him in all his old haunts around the house.

This summer, Julia wants to move on from Ramon’s death and to get over worrying about her height. Her friends Kaylee and Piper are both out of town, so she’s moping around the house. Her mother, noticing this, sends her with her little brother, Randy, to audition for a play at a local university. Julia’s brothers are both musical, and when Julia compares herself to them, she only remembers how much she hated piano lessons with Mrs. Sookram. Rather than practice piano at her lessons, Julia would get Mrs. Sookram talking about her life. Eventually, Julia’s mother canceled the lessons because Julia wasn’t progressing.

For her audition, Julia sings “This Land is Your Land” with enthusiasm, adding a bow at the end. Though Julia enjoys her audition experience, she compares herself to her brother Randy, who has “what Mrs. Vancil [...] would call ‘real potential’” (18), and assumes that she won’t get a part in the show.

Four days later, Julia is daydreaming about Ramon when her mother tells her that she and Randy have both been cast as Munchkins in the university’s production of The Wizard of Oz. At first, Julia is so intimidated by who else might be in the production and so concerned about losing her whole summer to practice and performances that she pretends to hurt herself to get out of rehearsal. Her plan doesn’t work, and the next day her mother drops off her and Randy at the first rehearsal. Julia is only shaken out of her dread when she spots three little people: professional actors who have been cast as Munchkins and who appear to be the same height as Julia and Randy. The three adults—Olive, Quincy, and Larry—introduce themselves to Julia and the other children, and Julia immediately warms to all three, particularly Olive. Shawn Barr, a famous director who has come to direct the play, calls the performers to attention and explains his high expectations and the possibility of being cut from the production. Julia realizes that despite her initial disinterest in the play, she’s now invested; she also feels a sense of connection to Olive, Quincy, and Larry. Julia decides “that this is going to be the summer the little people call the shots” and goes into the rest of rehearsal fully committed to the play (30).

Julia’s father creates scrapbooks for their family, memorializing important moments in their family’s history: Ramon at the Pet Parade, Julia’s mother’s time as a clown, and Julia, Randy, and Tim’s grades. As Julia reflects on the scrapbooks and her own experiences in history class and at presidential libraries, she realizes that only the recorded parts of a life or a story are remembered. When she thinks about what parts of the summer her father might think are important—the playbill, the review in the newspaper, etc.—she becomes concerned that the parts of this summer that are important to her, like being a Munchkin, remembering Ramon, and moving on from elementary school, may not get into the scrapbook. Julia therefore decides to create her own summer scrapbook; the first items she puts in it include Ramon’s fur, a piece of an old coat from kindergarten that still fits, and one of her baby teeth.