Smelling Herself is told through the voice of Bernadine, a precocious eleven-year-old wordsmith. Being an African American girl and living in West Oakland projects in 1964 can be a vulnerable and scary affair. Bernadine's convinced that the solution to her predicament is to grow up. But she soon discovers that growing up is more complicated than she expected. Though her community is loving-as is her mother and father-her environment is anything but child-friendly with kids getting shot by cops and others beating up their classmates in the tunnel that she has to pass through every day to and from school. Her precarious sense of well-being begins to unravel when Jessie Mae, a girl not much older than she, moves into the apartment above hers and Bernadine discovers the child is being abused.