In Money Hungry, Rasberry Hill, a thirteen year old girl is consumed with the need for money. Once homeless, she knows how it feels to sleep on the streets and in abandoned cars. She never wants to be that helpless again. Rasberry now lives with her mother in the housing projects. She is so obsessed with money that she loves the smell and feel of it. "I try not to do what I always do when dollars grease my palm- smell the money like its chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven." She has money hidden in various places in her room and likes to count it when she can't sleep. In order to make money, she skips lunch and hustles anything form candy to pencils at school. "Cause if you got money, people cant take stuff from you. They can't do much to you, if you get a bank roll backing you up." She once lived in a home, but her father became addicted to drugs and left the family. Her mother couldn't do it alone. After being on the streets, they ended up in the projects.

Rasberry hangs out with Zora, Ja Nae, and Mai. Zora's parents are divorced and she lives with her father, a doctor. Ja Nae lives with her grandparents after her mother left her. Mai's parents are together, but she struggles with the fact that she is biracial, African American and Korean. Ja Nae is described as short and fat with a beautiful face and dark eyes. She dresses in skirts that pass her knees "like those old church ladies do." She is obsessed about smelling good, so she has cotton balls infused with perfume tucked away in various places on her body. Mai has bushy eyebrows, slim hips, and slanty eyes. Zora always dresses well and has smooth cocoa brown skin and a dimple on her left cheek. Rasberry our main character has red hair and freckles and doesn't consider herself beautiful in the least.   

Throughout the story Rasberry fights to stay off the streets. She believes earning money is the only way she can do that. In her pursuit of money she comes up with the plan to clean elderly people's homes. She overheard ladies on the bus saying that they have paid people to come clean their homes for a hundred and fifty dollars. She finally convinces her friends to work with her, but after a while they all drop like flies. None of the girls had worked that hard in their whole lives.

All the characters show universal struggles that teens have these days. They all represent variations on the nuclear family of yesterday; single parents, grandparents raising grandchildren, and interracial households. Mai struggles with her identity and is ashamed of her Korean heritage. Zora struggles with the fact that her parents will never be together again. Ja Nae hopes one day her mother will come back for her. Rasberry just wants security in her instable life. A powerful tale of the changing world of families and their teens.