A 10-year-old boy during the Depression befriends a lion cub and learns about love and survival. Dickie Kettleson lives in constant fear of hunger and the destruction of his family. Sture Modig, crippled in World War I, is trying to make a living in a carnival with a lion cub he's rescued from a sailor in a bar. When their two worlds collide on an October day in 1938 in Wildwood, New Jersey, the meanings of family, loyalty, love, and survival must all be redefined.