Josephine 'Joey' Kaminski has already been to 9 different high schools. She has been a Cougar - twice, Jaguar - twice, Wildcat, Spartan, Rams, Husky, and a Falcon when her and her mom move to 36 Pearl Street in New Haven, Connecticut before the start of her senior year. Joey's mom has been a chronic dater ever since her dad died, the only problem is that when the relationship goes sideways, as it always does, they end up moving. So, when her mom starts dating, boyfriend #10 (she stopped learning their names a long time ago), Joey knows it can only end one way.
The difference this time? She doesn't want to move. Joey has befriended, Pani Mazurek the feisty and straight-talking Polish grandmother that lives below her and owns the building. After Joey sneaks out her window to smoke a cigarette, she comes across Pani Mazurek in her garden. What Joey thought was an innocent question, leads to Pani Mazurek telling her a story about the Nazi's and the real reason for hating tomatoes. Pani Mazurek takes Joey in, feeds her, finds her a job, and becomes a constant in her life that was otherwise filled with only fictional characters from her books. Pani Mazurek tells Joey stories her own family has long since forgotten - stories from the World War II and how she survived.
Another reason not to move? Pani Mazurek's brown eyed, curly haired grandson. It wasn't swoon at first sight, but it was close. Then she meets Lauren, his cousin - a beer drinking, cigarette smoking, cheerleader with a knack for getting into trouble. The three of them form a bond, that makes them inseparable except for when Lauren is grounded, which is always.
Joey never realized how one moment, in this case one address, could change your life. Before she steps foot into her new school for her first day of her senior year, she already knows it will be unlike any school she had started before. Joey finds a community she never had but always knew she wanted thanks to Pani Mazurek. A sudden accident threatens everything Joey has learned about herself and the community she has built around her.
36 Pearl Street tells the story about an unlikely pair. A seventeen-year-old teenager, with an emotionally unstable mom and an 80-year-old World War II survivor and how they each save each other.
