Like Vanessa by Tami Charles
Charlesbridge
Publication Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 1580897770
It’s 1983 and the first black woman has just been crowned Miss America.
Thirteen-year-old Vanessa wishes she could be beautiful and confident like Vanessa Williams. At home, she struggles with an absent mother, a distant father, and a grandfather who loves her but loves the bottle more. So when Vanessa’s choir teacher encourages her to use her beautiful voice to compete in the middle school’s beauty pageant, Vanessa must face the most difficult relationship in her life: herself.