Hoping that if she wins a local beauty pageant her father will come home, Raymie practices twirling a baton and performing good deeds as she is drawn into an unlikely friendship with a drama queen and a saboteur.

Dawn's a little jealous when there's a formal ceremony to welcome Jessi and Mallory into the Baby-sitters Club. Don't people know that Dawn's a special baby-sitter too? Then it's Dawn's turn to shine. Mrs. Pike wants Dawn to help prepare Margo and Claire for the Little Miss Stoneybrook contest. So what if Margo's only talent is peeling a banana with her feet? Dawn's going to help her charges win that contest any way she can. The only trouble is...Kristy,...

Twin daughters of interracial parents, eleven-year-olds Keira and Minna have very different skin tones and personalities, but it is not until their African American grandmother enters them in the Miss Black Pearl Pre-Teen competition in North Carolina that red-haired and pale-skinned Minna realizes what life in their small town in the Pacific Northwest has been like for her more outgoing, darker-skinned sister.