A cry in the night awakens ten-year-old Amy Beale and alerts her to the difficulties in her parents' marriage. Earlier that steamy evening in July 1940, her mother, Arleatha, witnessed yet another of her husband's infidelities at one of his notorious "rent parties." Amy overhears her sobbing in the middle of the night, as Jack Beale begs for another chance. Arleatha agrees to give him one year.

In Ring Around the Moon, an older, wiser Amy looks back on that pivotal year. She chronicles the family's move from a small colored community to an affluent town nearby, and the conflict there as she and her brothers, Lonnie and James, adjust to new friends, a new school, and interfering relatives and neighbors.

As the months pass and the children grow used to their surroundings, the struggle between Jack and Arleatha continues. Then a terrible incident threatens to break up the family once and for all.