Fourteen-year-old Charmaine can’t believe the way everyone in her family spoils her six-year-old cousin, Tracy John. Sure, he may be cute, smart, and funny, and he may not have a mother, but he’s also impossible. When Charmaine is put in charge of Tracy John two afternoons a week, his lack of respect for her authority drives her crazy. She faces a different kind of frustration at school, where she has developed a huge crush on a boy named Demetrius. She knows she’s not the type of girl Demetrius would look at twice, so when he asks her to start doing his homework for him, Charmaine says yes, working hard to convince herself that he likes her. In truth, even Tracy John realizes that Demetrius is just using Charmaine. The enjoyable banter and believable interactions between Charmaine and her family ground first-time author Allison Whittenberg’s story, which is set in 1975. They also ground Charmaine, whose behavior finally makes her pause and rethink her attitude toward both Tracy John and herself in an appealing, highly readable novel about an African American teen who is spirited, intelligent, self-righteous and, to her own chagrin and occasional dismay, not immune from making mistakes. (Ages 11–14)

Growing up in Philadelphia in 1975, 14-year-old Charmaine Upshaw is obsessed with justice. Unfortunately, she gets none of it in her life: not from her parents, who make her share a room with her tap-dancing brother Leo; not at school, where light-skinned, Barbie-doll-haired Dinah Coverdale steals all the boys' attention and makes sure dark-skinned Charmaine knows it; and certainly not from Tracy John, her six-year-old cousin who's taken over the family. When Charmaine is charged with babysitting her spoiled cousin after school, that's the last strawsomething's gotta give. And when Charmaine cracks, she starts to see the world in a whole new light. Can Charmaine learn to love herself, her mahogany skin, and her attention-starved little cousin? Sometimes when everything falls apart, putting it back together can help you see the truth. From the Hardcover edition.