Negotiations involving first love, a potential modeling career and a ne’er-do-well uncle prove challenging for 15-year-old Charmaine (Maine) in this gently humorous second installment about life in the Upshaw family. Employing the same relaxed pace used in 2006’s Sweet Thang, Maine’s narrative voice is steeped in the social conscience that frames the novel’s 1970s setting. There are occasional passages where details may be too nostalgic for current young readers, as when Maine muses that the young Michael Jackson “was asked to be James Brown, Jackie Wilson, and Sam Cooke all rolled into one.” Still, Maine’s loving exasperation with her brother and little cousin sparkle with life (evoking memories of Lois Lowry’s Anastasia and Sam Krupnik), and the wisdom of Maine’s parents and peers, richly woven with bits of African-American cultural history, feels true. Though readers need not be familiar with the first offering to enjoy the charm of this one, there are some allusions that will be clearer if they are. (Historical fiction. 10-14)
