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Brownies
When the pride of the girls are hurt by the Brownie group 909, they take it upon themselves to teach those girls a lesson.
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 2013
About the author
Z.Z. Packer
16 books306 followersZZ Packer (born January 12, 1973) is an African-American author, notable for her works of short fiction. Born in Chicago, Illinois, she grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and Louisville, Kentucky. Her given name is Zuwena (Swahili for "good"), but "After a while of teachers mispronouncing my name and everyone else in the world, I began introducing myself as ZZ, and it just kind of stuck". Recognized as a talented writer at an early age, her first significant publication was in Seventeen magazine at the age of 19. She is a 1990 graduate of Seneca High School, in Louisville, KY.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
May 12, 2026
Language can convey love and beauty, take us to other worlds and lives, and make us laugh. It can also be a weapon of cruelty. This short story combines all those aspects without being a preachy cliché or a polemic.
Laurel is recounting what happened on a Brownie camping trip, organised by their church. The other troop at the site is very different:
“White girls, their complexions a blend of ice cream: strawberry, vanilla… looking all around them like tourists determined to be dazzled. ”
In their Atlanta suburb, they rarely see whites. They’ve long used “Caucasian” as a slur and now they mock the other girls’ smell (“like wet Chihuahuas”).
“Trisyllabic words had gained a sort of exoticism within our fourth-grade set.”
In a literal sense, that’s “racist”, but is that word too loaded?
This is far more than a simple race-reversal tale. Arnetta says she heard one of the other girls refer to Daphne as a nigger - yes the word is used: ZZ Packer is an African-American author who wrote this is 1999. The girls are understandably outraged and want to teach the culprit a lesson, along with the rest of her troop. But this isn’t Lord of the Flies with girls. They have a secret meeting;
“The word ‘secret’ had a built-in importance, the modifier form of the word carried more clout than the noun.”
Events unfold… unexpectedly.
Image: Three Girl Scouts of Atlanta nowadays, making a fire (Source)
I was never a Brownie, and I don’t like camping. It didn’t matter. This is a beautifully-crafted story, interspersed with vignettes of tragedy, deprivation, and joy, as well as petty pranks and rivalries. It’s imbued with a love of words: the camp songs (variously loved and loathed), the weight the girls themselves put in certain words, the poetry, and so on. Positive aspects of language to balance the issue of slurs.
It hits gently but firmly because it challenges first impressions, makes the reader reassess things, and thereby raises awkward questions: who is the victim of whom, and who is the bully? Can slurs ever be justified? The answers are multifaceted - yet blurred.
And of course, the title could refer to several other things.
Quotes
• “A poem brimming with all the teacher-winning ingredients - trees and oceans, sunsets and moons.”
• “No one could dislodge her from the comfort of her own woe.”
• “Life without Jesus is like a do-ough-nut… .”
• “If most of the girls in the troop could be any kind of metal, they’d be bunched up wads of tinfoil, maybe, or rusty iron nail you had to get tetanus shots for.”
• “The stars sprinkled the sky like spilled salt. They seemed fastened to the darkness, high up and holy.”
Short story club
I read this with The Short Story Club.
You can read this story HERE. Link now works! (But you may need to rotate the page.)
You can join the group here.
Laurel is recounting what happened on a Brownie camping trip, organised by their church. The other troop at the site is very different:
“White girls, their complexions a blend of ice cream: strawberry, vanilla… looking all around them like tourists determined to be dazzled. ”
In their Atlanta suburb, they rarely see whites. They’ve long used “Caucasian” as a slur and now they mock the other girls’ smell (“like wet Chihuahuas”).
“Trisyllabic words had gained a sort of exoticism within our fourth-grade set.”
In a literal sense, that’s “racist”, but is that word too loaded?
This is far more than a simple race-reversal tale. Arnetta says she heard one of the other girls refer to Daphne as a nigger - yes the word is used: ZZ Packer is an African-American author who wrote this is 1999. The girls are understandably outraged and want to teach the culprit a lesson, along with the rest of her troop. But this isn’t Lord of the Flies with girls. They have a secret meeting;
“The word ‘secret’ had a built-in importance, the modifier form of the word carried more clout than the noun.”
Events unfold… unexpectedly.
Image: Three Girl Scouts of Atlanta nowadays, making a fire (Source)
I was never a Brownie, and I don’t like camping. It didn’t matter. This is a beautifully-crafted story, interspersed with vignettes of tragedy, deprivation, and joy, as well as petty pranks and rivalries. It’s imbued with a love of words: the camp songs (variously loved and loathed), the weight the girls themselves put in certain words, the poetry, and so on. Positive aspects of language to balance the issue of slurs.
It hits gently but firmly because it challenges first impressions, makes the reader reassess things, and thereby raises awkward questions: who is the victim of whom, and who is the bully? Can slurs ever be justified? The answers are multifaceted - yet blurred.
And of course, the title could refer to several other things.
Quotes
• “A poem brimming with all the teacher-winning ingredients - trees and oceans, sunsets and moons.”
• “No one could dislodge her from the comfort of her own woe.”
• “Life without Jesus is like a do-ough-nut… .”
• “If most of the girls in the troop could be any kind of metal, they’d be bunched up wads of tinfoil, maybe, or rusty iron nail you had to get tetanus shots for.”
• “The stars sprinkled the sky like spilled salt. They seemed fastened to the darkness, high up and holy.”
Short story club
I read this with The Short Story Club.
You can read this story HERE. Link now works! (But you may need to rotate the page.)
You can join the group here.
October 19, 2025
4.5 stars
Free PDF: https://xpressenglish.com/our-stories...
shortish review for busy readers:
Short story (published: 2000).
A Brownie troop (junior Girl Scouts) from a black neighbourhood of Atlanta, GA, attends summer camp for a week...and is shocked when Troop 909, full of little white girls, shows up, too.
Not believing they can share space peacefully, one of the girls claims the white girls called them the N-word and they should "teach them Caucasians a lesson". The joke's on them when it turns out
"Brownies" offers a realistic look at juvenile racism and the deep-seated feelings of being discriminated against that have nothing to do with current actions or people.
Excellent dialogue and often funny at times, esp in the invocation of religious adult women who often volunteer for troop leader jobs, and how easy it is to jump to conclusions about cute unicorn sleeping bags and hair "straight as spaghetti".
Free PDF: https://xpressenglish.com/our-stories...
shortish review for busy readers:
Short story (published: 2000).
A Brownie troop (junior Girl Scouts) from a black neighbourhood of Atlanta, GA, attends summer camp for a week...and is shocked when Troop 909, full of little white girls, shows up, too.
Not believing they can share space peacefully, one of the girls claims the white girls called them the N-word and they should "teach them Caucasians a lesson". The joke's on them when it turns out
"Brownies" offers a realistic look at juvenile racism and the deep-seated feelings of being discriminated against that have nothing to do with current actions or people.
Excellent dialogue and often funny at times, esp in the invocation of religious adult women who often volunteer for troop leader jobs, and how easy it is to jump to conclusions about cute unicorn sleeping bags and hair "straight as spaghetti".
May 11, 2026
Great short story. Very original, contemporary racial/cultural clash told with honesty and humor. Recommended reading for anyone ages 8 to 80. Five+plus, gold stars.
May 30, 2026
This was one of the reads for Short Story Club , a group on Goodreads.
And it’s a fascinating read in how ZZ Packer expands the discussion of racism as Laurel, an African American, looks back to a camping trip when she was young. I especially like the layers that give varying degrees of bullying, racism and hate, but what gives this story depth is the build-up; and the subtext showing how this can happen.
In looking back, it is also nice how young Laurel finds a connection with Daphne whom she always wanted to be friends with. With what happens, they both discover an understanding of that grown-up world and much more (which by-passes the others in the group). And the last line speaks volumes, not just in what Daphne says but also it is she who is given that last line. And that last line I thought was a really nice note to end this story on.
And it’s a fascinating read in how ZZ Packer expands the discussion of racism as Laurel, an African American, looks back to a camping trip when she was young. I especially like the layers that give varying degrees of bullying, racism and hate, but what gives this story depth is the build-up; and the subtext showing how this can happen.
In looking back, it is also nice how young Laurel finds a connection with Daphne whom she always wanted to be friends with. With what happens, they both discover an understanding of that grown-up world and much more (which by-passes the others in the group). And the last line speaks volumes, not just in what Daphne says but also it is she who is given that last line. And that last line I thought was a really nice note to end this story on.
May 13, 2026
Laurel, a girl in an African-American Brownie troop, narrates this story about a camping weekend. An important theme is how children pick up racial prejudice and radial slurs at a young age. There is also peer pressure in the story where a girl in one troop plans a retaliatory attack on another troop, and demands that the other girls follow her lead. The story includes songs and traditions passed down through the years by Brownies and Girl Scouts so it seems realistic. "Brownies" does have a twist because things may be different than they first appear.
I read this with the Short Story Club.
I read this with the Short Story Club.
November 21, 2018
“Make new friends
But keep the old,
One is silver
And the other gold.
If most of the girls in my troop could be any type of metal, they’d be bunched up wads of tinfoil maybe, or rusty iron nails you had to get tetanus shots for.”
Having been a Girl Scout for my entire childhood, all the way up through 12th grade, this story spoke to my heart in so many ways – the truly cruel things that girls in awkwardly fitting, scratchy uniforms get up to, under the veneer of demureness; the power relationships in a troop; the pitch-perfect description of a camp bathroom. I was simultaneously elated and dejected that those memories were deep within me too, ready to be plumbed, but that someone else had found them before me, and shared them in a better way than I ever could.
October 22, 2022
Sometimes, I'm not into a short story, and then I get to my fiction workshop. We discuss it, and suddenly my eyes are open to all of these little details and nuances I missed because I treated the short story like one in an endless lists of readings.
Brownies was one of those stories for me. Upon discussion and reread, I saw how meticulous Packer is about her craft. As my professor said, it is really hard to write a great short story, but Packer knows how. She is able to juggle setting and multiple character development while exploring issues of race and privilege. Apparently, it's been years since she released a novel or short story collection, but I would be eager to read it. I'll definitely have to seek more of her work out.
Brownies was one of those stories for me. Upon discussion and reread, I saw how meticulous Packer is about her craft. As my professor said, it is really hard to write a great short story, but Packer knows how. She is able to juggle setting and multiple character development while exploring issues of race and privilege. Apparently, it's been years since she released a novel or short story collection, but I would be eager to read it. I'll definitely have to seek more of her work out.
April 15, 2019
Read this for a class but wow. This hit hard. It's hard to read this and not be absorbed by memories of just how cruel children can be, especially to the quiet or the different. At the same time, it's hard not to be torn apart by the underlying currents of social conflict and tension that drive the emotions in this story - the dialogue was so powerful, and the ending so poignant.
February 28, 2025
I really liked this! I think the hypocrisy that the girls engage in is really interesting. Their pride is hurt so they lash out, and when what they find out is not what they expected, they lash out even more out of embarrassment.
October 9, 2020
This ended in a very unexpected mood. But I felt it. It is one of those things you either get or don't. Definitely relevant for today's times.
September 24, 2025
‘Brownies’ by ZZ Packer is an insight into segregation and prejudice, told from a young girl’s perspective as their troop goes on a camping trip. On that trip, they encounter other troops- one of which standing out to them- white girls, with blonde hair and blue eyes. One of the girls ‘says’ that the girls on the other troop (the main character, Snot’s troop is predominately black) called another girl, Daphne, who keeps to herself, a name. Through this, Snot’s troop tries to ambush (although Snot does not want to comply) the girls, and finds out that they are special needs.
This book gives insight on how prejudice can go multiple ways. Snot’s troop bullied the girls because they are special needs, which is a form of ableism. The reader also gets to see the insight of systemic racism as well, and the desire of revenge with it.
The most interesting aspect is that Packer never gives us if the girl said the slur or not. I think it is so interesting, because there’s multiple factors in the story that support the claim or deny it.
However, I feel that Packer could have kept the plot more straightforward. She have an interesting writing style.
This book gives insight on how prejudice can go multiple ways. Snot’s troop bullied the girls because they are special needs, which is a form of ableism. The reader also gets to see the insight of systemic racism as well, and the desire of revenge with it.
The most interesting aspect is that Packer never gives us if the girl said the slur or not. I think it is so interesting, because there’s multiple factors in the story that support the claim or deny it.
However, I feel that Packer could have kept the plot more straightforward. She have an interesting writing style.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 15, 2020
While attending Camp Crescendo, the protagonist's brownie troop has decided to teach troop 909 a lesson they won't soon forget. Apparently one of the white girls from troop 909 has called one member of Snot's group the n-word. Egged on by Arnetta, the brownies plot their revenge, but when it's time to rumble, the brownies are met with an unexpected revelation about troop 909.
Read
September 16, 2021**read for short essay class**
September 17, 2016
one of those short stories so complete and perfect that when you finish them, you feel like you've read a whole novel.
August 1, 2026
I read this for Goodreads' Short Story Club.
I was a Girl Scout Junior and Cadette, so I am familiar with the "Something in my pocket" and "Make new friends" songs. I later led my daughter's GS troop. I thought this story was sad because it showed how bullying is widespread and harmful, and how hate and racism can be taught to innocent children. But I liked some of the imagery, such as the hair "straight as spaghetti from the box." And I appreciate how the author shines a light on some important issues, such as racism, ableism, poverty and bullying.
I liked how the GS leaders tried to gently teach the girls about their peers and to encourage them to "be a sister to every Girl Scout," which is a core phrase of the Girl Scout Law. I am a firm believer in the Girl Scout program, which aims to teach all girls to be kind, independent, inclusive, considerate, caring and strong.
I liked Daphne, because I could identify with her. I also felt sorry for Laurel and Janice because they were picked on by the other girls. I think the fact that Laurel and Daphne's names have the same meaning highlights the fact that they are both outsiders and have a lot in common.
I think a theme of the story is that we shouldn't prejudge each other but instead should try to get to know each other as friends and equals. We don't always know the burdens that others are carrying.
By the way, Mennonites don't have to do what other people tell them to do, but they often work in construction, woodworking and other skilled trades.
Be advised that there are a few racist and ableist slurs in the story.
I was a Girl Scout Junior and Cadette, so I am familiar with the "Something in my pocket" and "Make new friends" songs. I later led my daughter's GS troop. I thought this story was sad because it showed how bullying is widespread and harmful, and how hate and racism can be taught to innocent children. But I liked some of the imagery, such as the hair "straight as spaghetti from the box." And I appreciate how the author shines a light on some important issues, such as racism, ableism, poverty and bullying.
I liked how the GS leaders tried to gently teach the girls about their peers and to encourage them to "be a sister to every Girl Scout," which is a core phrase of the Girl Scout Law. I am a firm believer in the Girl Scout program, which aims to teach all girls to be kind, independent, inclusive, considerate, caring and strong.
I liked Daphne, because I could identify with her. I also felt sorry for Laurel and Janice because they were picked on by the other girls. I think the fact that Laurel and Daphne's names have the same meaning highlights the fact that they are both outsiders and have a lot in common.
I think a theme of the story is that we shouldn't prejudge each other but instead should try to get to know each other as friends and equals. We don't always know the burdens that others are carrying.
By the way, Mennonites don't have to do what other people tell them to do, but they often work in construction, woodworking and other skilled trades.
Be advised that there are a few racist and ableist slurs in the story.
May 14, 2026
A troop of Black girl brownies were at a camp site where they were determined to “kick the asses” of Brownie Troop 909. The latter was described as “white girls, their complexions a blend of ice cream: strawberry, vanilla”.
Oh, the meanness of schoolgirls is on full display here. Parker rendered palpable the envy and hatred the Black girls felt toward the white girls. There was peer pressure to punish the white “invaders”; there was also bullying amongst their own kind. Girls can be downright nasty.
A surprise awaited the Black girls when they carried out their revenge for a perceived racial slur. The ending was poignant in what the narrator was made aware of, particularly the extent of human cruelty. Powerful story.
P.S. I used to go camping with the Girls’ Brigade. I know that donut song! 😊
The story can be read here:
https://www.litandwriting.umb.edu/eng...
Oh, the meanness of schoolgirls is on full display here. Parker rendered palpable the envy and hatred the Black girls felt toward the white girls. There was peer pressure to punish the white “invaders”; there was also bullying amongst their own kind. Girls can be downright nasty.
A surprise awaited the Black girls when they carried out their revenge for a perceived racial slur. The ending was poignant in what the narrator was made aware of, particularly the extent of human cruelty. Powerful story.
P.S. I used to go camping with the Girls’ Brigade. I know that donut song! 😊
The story can be read here:
https://www.litandwriting.umb.edu/eng...
August 13, 2021
Actual Rating = 3.25
I read this short story for a literature class and I'm so glad I did. It's well written and definitely qualifies as a modern classic that deals with how the ills of society are present in children.
So why the relatively low rating Fangirl? Excellent question.
This story is smart and insightful and worth reading but it's not particularly enjoyable and I didn't find myself sinking into the story. This is probably just a restriction given the length and how the author worked within it. I probably would've given a longer work that grew out of this story a higher rating.
I read this short story for a literature class and I'm so glad I did. It's well written and definitely qualifies as a modern classic that deals with how the ills of society are present in children.
So why the relatively low rating Fangirl? Excellent question.
This story is smart and insightful and worth reading but it's not particularly enjoyable and I didn't find myself sinking into the story. This is probably just a restriction given the length and how the author worked within it. I probably would've given a longer work that grew out of this story a higher rating.
December 31, 2023
“As I watched the trees blur, I wanted nothing more than to be through with it all: the bus ride, the troop, school—all of it. But we were going home. I’d see the same girls in school the next day. We were on a bus, and there was nowhere else to go.”
things are never as we want or think they should be just what they are.
things are never as we want or think they should be just what they are.
May 11, 2026
A Brownie pack at camp encounters another Brownie pack, and feelings are aroused: revenge is plotted.
Not all the girls are mean; one or two are sensitive and struggle to be heard.
Quietly powerful story, where the word "caucasian" is used as an insult (without really knowing the meaning) and the "n-word" is seen as a weapon which can cut both ways.
Not all the girls are mean; one or two are sensitive and struggle to be heard.
Quietly powerful story, where the word "caucasian" is used as an insult (without really knowing the meaning) and the "n-word" is seen as a weapon which can cut both ways.
July 22, 2019
This is a short story about how racism can come in different packages, and how some people are racist without even realizing it.
It's too blatant to be a valuable work of literature, but I like the information.
It's too blatant to be a valuable work of literature, but I like the information.
February 20, 2021
Excellent story about prejudice - possibly toward an African American brownie troop and definitely toward a white troop of girls. A great lesson about xenophobia in whatever form it is found. Recommend. Kristi & Abby Tabby
February 3, 2026
Read for class as a part of a characterization lesson and I can understand why. This story manages so many distinct characters in such a short amount of time. Packer does not waste any opportunity in description or dialogue to build bit by bit a clear image of these girls.
May 11, 2026
With this story you think you're getting one thing but you end up with another thing entirely . Even the double meaning of the title, in a story where race is in the foreground, has another meaning : a soft centred cake with a tough but brittle outer crust exactly like the girls in this story .
June 4, 2026
I'll give it a few brownie points for some of the nifty verbiage, but otherwise I felt a bit let down, pehaps from overly high expectations, from group commentaries, and the star of story itself was enticing.
October 12, 2017
Moving story. Glad children are having these realizations
April 5, 2022
I loved this short story and the messages it has throughout.
Read
March 9, 2023Read for Literature by Black Women
March 15, 2023
Read it
May 20, 2023
Full of rich imagery and thick with metaphors. Made me a better writer.
May 21, 2024
I absolutely love the vivid details in this story!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews