A Queen of Summer is going to be crowned on Hill Street, where Betsy, Tacy, and Tib live. Betsy and Tacy want Tib to be queen, for she looks just like a princess. But Betsy's older sister, Julia, has other ideas. To get votes for the election, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib go over the Big Hill to Little Syria, where a colony of refugees have come to live a better life. There the three girls make a new friend and find a way to choose a queen. They learn something, too. They learn that new Americans are sometimes the best Americans. And they learn that they themselves wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

Ever since their first publication in the 1940s, the Betsy-Tacy stories have been loved by each generation of young readers.