“Caucasia” is chiefly Birdie’s story, and her struggles to fit in anywhere, to pass as anything, are vivid. At her Afrocentric elementary school she longs for cornrows; when she and her mother settle down in a small New Hampshire town she learns to wear tight jeans, skinny tops and layers of makeup. But she’s always the outsider looking in, a spy even in her own family. Senna, herself the more fair-skinned daughter of a biracial couple, knows racial politics firsthand, but she’s more interested in their real-life consequences. She tells this coming-of-age tale with impressive beauty and power.
