Resolution YOU: Middle Grade

Twelve-year-old Agnes hates everything about herself, starting with her name, so while spending a summer with her father, a cellist, she decides to become someone else.

When a school variety show leaves Olive stranded without an act to join, she wonders why all of her friends have already formed their own groups without her.

It is 1983 and Vanessa Martin, a thirteen-year-old African American girl in Newark's public housing, dreams of following in the footsteps of the first black Miss America, Vanessa Williams; but with a dysfunctional family (mother in jail, father withdrawn, drunken grandfather, gay cousin) the odds are against her--until a new teacher at school organizes a beauty pageant and encourages Vanessa to enter.

Things Tally is dreading about sixth grade: -- Being in classes without her best friends -- New (scratchy) uniforms -- Hiding her autism Tally isn't ashamed of being autistic -- even if it complicates life sometimes, it's part of who she is. But this is her first year at Kingswood Academy, and her best friend, Layla, is the only one who knows. And while a lot of other people are uncomfortable around Tally, Layla has never been one of them...