Mrs. Paley was a kindergarten teacher at the time she wrote this book, therefore her perspective comes from her work in the classroom. The book is based on actual children who were in Mrs. Paley's classrooms through the early years of her career. Mrs. Paley's objective in writing this book was to discuss the uniqueness of teaching children of color during a time when racial equality was still being sought and tensions between races still existed. Mrs. Paley came to this subject through the experiences of a young Jewish woman who had herself suffered the injustices of society and was a student whose differences were ignored in an uneducated attempt at making her feel equal among non-Jewish students.