I'm honestly impressed by how progressive this is, considering it's (relatively) old and set in a most-likely-predominantly-white small town:

Spoiler

a scene refuting the assumption that each of the girls will grow up to be a "little housewife", and the way they get over their preconceptions of "foreigners" by befriending Syrian immigrant Naifi and her community

.

I don't know that I loved this quite as much as the previous two books, but it's still quite a fun read.