We Love You, Charlie Freeman

Teenager Charlotte Freeman isn't thrilled when her mother uproots the family to the Toneybee Institute. All of the members of the family know how to speak in sign language and were hired to live at the Institute and teach Charlie, a chimpanzee, how to communicate. Every moment is filmed, and Charlotte is confronted with bigotry everywhere—the town is geographically divided by race. She soon discovers the wrongness of it all—an African American family raising an ape as one of their own. Back in the 1920s, the Toneybee Institute conducted racist, Tuskegee-like experiments, which readers learn about from the point of view of a black woman and from the perspective of the institute's rich white founder. Charlotte's coming-of-age story will ring true with teens, who will cringe at the blatant and subtle racism she encounters. Her sexual identity as a lesbian is never the center of the story, and neither are the apes. This is a literary yet easily approachable novel about race, family, and relationships, making Greenidge an author to watch. While the similarities to Kenneth Oppel's Half Brother and Sara Gruen's Ape House are obvious, this volume would also pair well with Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.