Funny and deeply affecting, this novel by the Steptoe Award winner for Brendan Buckley’s Universe and Everything in It (2007) revisits the still largely unexplored world of multiracial heritage. Twin daughters of a black mom and white dad, Minerva and Keira King, 11, fly from Washington State to North Carolina to stay with oppressive Grandmother Johnson and compete in the Miss Black Pearl Preteen pageant. The narrator, shy Minni, who appears white, is reluctant; outgoing Keira, who appears black, is thrilled. Back home, Minni has unknowingly benefited from white privilege, while Keira’s appearance has subjected her to bias. In North Carolina, Keira fits in, and Minni stands out. Although she’s favored by their grandmother, Minni’s white appearance leads others to question her right to identify as black. As their experience of race threatens to divide the sisters, Minni struggles to heal the rift. Frazier highlights the contradictions, absurdities, humor and pain that accompany life as a mixed-race tween. Never didactic, this is the richest portrait of multiracial identity and family since Virginia Hamilton’s 1976 novel Arilla Sun Down. An outstanding achievement. (Fiction. 9-12)
