“Brownies” takes place at Camp Crescendo, a summer camp for fourth graders near the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. The story is told in the first person by an African American girl named Laurel, known to the other girls by her nickname, Snot. Laurel announces that by the second day at the camp, all the girls in her Brownie troop had decided they were going to “kick the asses” of every girl in Brownie Troop 909, who were all white girls. The black girls took a dislike to the white girls when they first saw them. Arnetta, the girls’ ringleader, said they smelled “like Chihuahuas. Wet Chihuahuas.” When she adds that they were like “Caucasian Chihuahuas,” all the black girls go into fits of laughter. They regard the word Caucasian as a hilarious term of abuse that can...