Punky Brewster, a bright eight-year-old girl, has been abandoned by her mother and lives on the streets of Chicago with her puppy sidekick Brandon. Punky thinks she doesn't need help, but after getting picked up by the police, she enters a foster home and starts to search for a family. Punky meets Henry, a long-lost relative, and decides he's the adoptive dad for her. All she has to do is convince the foster home, adoption judges and lawyers, and possibly Henry himself.