Like Vanessa

January 15, 2018
In pursuit of her dreams, Vanessa becomes an unlikely contestant in her middle school's first-ever pageant.African-American eighth-grader Vanessa Martin is glued to the TV when Vanessa Williams is crowned the first black Miss America in 1983. Inspired, Vanessa imagines her own dreams coming true. Maybe she can rise above her painful family problems and dissatisfaction with her dark skin. Maybe she can escape her gang- and drug-plagued neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. But when the new music teacher, Mrs. Walton, who is white, encourages Vanessa to audition for the school's first-ever pageant, she declines. She has an extraordinary singing voice but lacks the confidence to compete. When Mrs. Walton, Vanessa's grandpa Pop Pop, and her cousin TJ join forces to get her to try out, she must face her fears--and the neighborhood mean girl--to have a shot at realizing her dreams. Vanessa's compelling story unfolds through a combination of first-person narrative, diary entries, and well-crafted poems that perfectly capture the teen voice and perspective. From the first page, readers are drawn into Vanessa's world, a place of poverty, abandonment, and secrets--and abiding love and care. The soundscape of early rap music helps bring the '80s to life and amplifies Vanessa's concerns about racism, friendship, family, and her future. Readers of all ages and backgrounds will cheer Vanessa on and see themselves in her story.This debut is a treasure: a gift to every middle school girl who ever felt unpretty, unloved, and trapped by her circumstances. (Fiction. 10-14)

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March 12, 2018
Watching TV in the Newark, N.J., apartment she shares with her loving grandfather, big-hearted gay cousin, and reclusive father, Vanessa Martin feels "the tiniest piece of hope" as Vanessa Williams is crowned Miss America in 1983. Though Williams is lighter-skinned than she, the 13-year-old reasons that the pageant winner's victory "means that one day girls like meâthe blackest of blackâcould be seen as pretty too." Throughout the course of Charles's sinuous novel, Vanessa reveals other deep-seated hopes: that she finds her mother, who disappeared years before, and that her father, who is "locked away in his chamber of inner demons," will also reemerge. When her insightful and supportive teacher encourages Vanessa, an honors student who sings magnificently, to enter the school pageant, she agrees, despite her self-doubt and classmates' jeers. Vanessa's honest, at times sardonic narrativeâsupplemented by poems and journal entriesâtracks her burgeoning maturity as she discovers the essence of authentic friendship, comes to terms with family secrets, and gains the confidence to stay true to her vision. Loosely autobiographical, Charles's debut novel dexterously interlaces pathos and humor and introduces a refreshing new voice. Ages 10-up.

Starred review from March 1, 2018
Grades 5-8 *Starred Review* Vanessa William's 1983 win as the first black Miss America doesn't make the crown feel much closer to 13-year-old Vanessa Martin. Being raised in rundown Newark, New Jersey, young Vanessa feels too unpretty to even consider entering her school's beauty pageant, despite her amazing singing voice. Only at the urging of her new music teacher, who happens to be in charge of the pageant, does Vanessa finally agree to participate, facing many challenges in the process. There is something retro in the execution and sincerity of Charles' semiautobiographical debut novel. With its '80s inner-city setting and young black protagonist, guided to a better sense of self by a do-gooder white teacher, the story only needs to seat its characters backward on school chairs to check all this genre's boxes. However, Charles evades the clich�s and imbues Vanessa with an inner life that's so real and personal it's hard to deny the charm, heartbreak, and triumph of her story. Additionally, the protagonist has a fractured and flawed, but loving, family at her back, which acts as a bulwark against her insecurities and drives the narrative to its hopeful, graceful conclusion. Best of all is that, with some support, Vanessa ultimately finds strength in herself and goes on to be the greatest architect of her dreams. Superb.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)