After 17-year-old and seven months pregnant Novalee Nation is abandoned by boyfriend Willy Jack Pickens at the local Walmart in Sequoyah when she uses the restroom and buys new shoes, she meets Thelma "Sister" Husband who presents her with a buckeye tree, and Moses Whitecotton, a local photographer who advises her to give her baby a strong name. A sickly and homeless Novalee is forced to live in the Walmart, undetected. Novalee is also acquainted with surly librarian Forney Hull who looks after his alcoholic sister Mary Elizabeth.