School of Charm by Lisa Ann Scott (review)

It’s 1977, and eleven-year-old Brenda “Chip” Anderson is not one bit thrilled with her new Southern surroundings at the house of her estranged grandmother in North Carolina. Unlike her older and younger sister, nature-loving tomboy Chip can’t seem to fit into a life dominated by her grandmother’s heavy-handed machinations to prepare the girls for the local beauty pageant. The girls’ newly widowed mother isn’t much help, and the grandmother’s persistent unkindness towards Chip goes largely unchecked. Desperate for some positive attention, Chip stumbles upon the nearby home of a woman who runs a unique charm school. Miss Vernie treats Chip kindly and, with the help of what Chip believes are magic charm bracelets, trains Chip and two other girls—plump, insecure Karen and fierce, African-American Dana—for the pageant in her own unorthodox way. Chip veers between trying to make herself into something she’s not and being herself as the pageant approaches and, as she discovers some secrets about her grandmother’s past, she learns that people are more complicated than they seem. Chip is a likable heroine, and the period setting is cozy but still realistic (there is resistance to Dana taking part in what has traditionally been a white pageant, setting up the 1983 conclusion in which Vanessa Williams is crowned Miss America). The family dynamics are engaging but overdrawn: Chip’s grandmother is so nasty to her for so much of the book that her change of heart near the end, while a relief, is hard to swallow. Chip’s willingness to participate in a pageant may be equally unbelievable, but her sorrow at the loss of her father is entirely credible. Despite the book’s shortcomings, readers who like heart-warming family stories, spunky heroines, and Southern settings may still find this an entertaining read.