You know that girl—maybe you are that girl—the one with sky-high talent and the drive to match. Most likely to succeed in a big way. The girl who forms a singing group with her friends in middle school, performs at all the local events, wins prizes, gets noticed, gets signed. Cuts a record on an honest-to-goodness label, tours the world. The girl who hears her own clear voice on the radio at night.
“I used to be that girl,” says New York Times–bestselling author Tami Charles, who joined an all-girl RB singing group in the 1990s, when she was just 13. The group performed with Boyz II Men, appeared on BET and Showtime at the Apollo, and—yes—had a song on the radio. It was a whirlwind time with major highs, major lows, and friends and bandmates lost along the way, she tells Kirkus via Zoom from her home in New Jersey.
“There were four of us—and then there were three of us,” she says. “And then there were four of us again. And then it would go down to three. And then there was nothing.”
That formative experience on the extreme roller coaster that is the contemporary music industry helped shape Charles’ most personal book to date. Muted (Scholastic, Feb. 2), a novel in verse, is the story of 17-year-old Denver Lafleur, a singer/songwriter with a talent that cannot be denied, nor contained by her small Pennsylvania hometown. Together with best friends Dalisay Gómez and Shakira Brown, Denver forms Angelic Voices, an RB trio whose otherworldly harmonies win them first prize in the local corn festival talent competition: $50 and a bushel of corn (split three ways). But Denver’s got eyes on a much bigger prize—fame, fortune, Grammys, greatness.
Denver decides to make her own opportunity for a big break when she hears RB superstar Sean “Mercury” Ellis is performing nearby. Cellphone, backing track, and portable speaker in hand, she, Dali, and Shak drive to Newark, New Jersey, hoping to get noticed in the crowd outside the Prudential Center before the show.
When “Merc” emerges from mic check, they catch a glimpse of his glinting, diamond-encrusted Air Force 1’s through the throng of fans. Denver hits play on her phone, and the girls start to sing:
[T]he minute we unleashed our voices,
noise canceled,
Air Force 1s emerged,
each diamond
bringing more sunshine with it.
Sean “Mercury” Ellis.
Shades slid
to the tip of his nose.
Gray eyes sparkling
beneath the midday sun.
Homeboy was snapping,
swerving,
growing to “Shoot Your Shot,”
our song—
my song.
Time stood still as
verse blended into chorus,
into the final,
belting, universe-breaking
Merc is a hit-maker who instantly recognizes the girls’ potential. From a backstage invite after the show, they’re swept into the glamorous world of recording studios, parties, and first-class flights. But red flags arise when he attempts to remake the group in his image—renaming them “Untouched,” for starters—leading to hurt feelings, broken promises, lost relationships, and mortal danger.
“I wrote this from the perspective of what would have happened to my singing group had we met a Sean ‘Mercury’ Ellis,” says Charles, who was never without a trusted chaperone on the road (“One of our dads was always there,” she says).
“He’s an angel at first, but in the end, he’s a monster,” she says of Merc. “Denver realizes this [after some time]. And she says, OK, I have to mute this monster and I have to reclaim my power, for both myself and my friends. That’s what the book is all about. It’s about a girl who finds her voice and finds the most clever way to get what she wants, fulfill her dreams, and mute the monster in the end.”
Charles’ professional path eventually led out of the music industry and into the classroom. She taught elementary school for 14 years, specializing in third and fifth grades. Inspired by working—and reading—with students, she eventually decided to follow her long-term dream of writing full time.
“[I]t took a while for me to lean into that title—writer—and own it, because it was something that I was shy to say,” she says, “especially when I first started, and I didn’t have an agent, I didn’t have a book deal. Like, how dare I call myself a writer when I didn’t have books on the shelf? It takes time, and it takes courage.”
Today, Charles is the author of numerous books for young readers, including the picture book All Because You Matter, illustrated by Bryan Collier, and the middle-grade novel Like Vanessa, about an eighth grader who emulates Vanessa Williams, which Kirkus called “a treasure: a gift to every middle school girl who ever felt unpretty, unloved, and trapped by her circumstances” in a starred review.
“I have tons of ideas,” she says. “It’s execution that makes it hard because I never want to do the same thing twice.”
When Charles began writing Muted six years ago, it was vastly different from the highly personal novel in verse it became. Instead of a singer/songwriter, Denver was a girl who wanted to get famous—dancer, model, actress, whatever—because she just wanted to shine onstage. But the story really got off the ground when Charles started bringing the sum of her experience to the material: the singer, the songwriter, the child star, and the teacher.
“I was like, dang it, I think I have to write this from a place of experience,” she says. “I used to be in a singing group—Jesus, that means this girl’s gonna have to write songs. Which meant I was going to have to write the songs—and I just couldn’t help it. Next thing I knew, I was singing melodies.”
Melodies, harmonies, lyrics, and instrumentation: Before she knew it, Charles had an album’s worth of original music in addition to a fully formed novel in verse.
“This was such a different process,” she says, “because, typically when I write novels, I have a daily word count goal—I’m going to write 2,000 words today, I’m going to write 1,000 words today. I wanted this book to feel like an album, so I knew I had to write poems. Instead of a word-count goal, I had a poem-count goal.”
A poem, a song, an album, a novel in verse: Whatever the medium, Muted calls readers to claim their artistry and express themselves powerfully. To use their voices to call out bad actors and to believe others when they do the same.
“For you to reach your goals, you don’t have to diminish yourself,” Charles says. “That’s truly the heart of the book. Be loud. There’s nothing wrong with being loud. You don’t have to mute yourself to make someone else feel bigger and more important. So be loud as hell.”
Megan Labrise is the editor at large and host of the Fully Booked podcast.
