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Jun 27, 2020IndyPL_SteveB rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Winner of 2020 Newbery Medal and the 2020 Coretta Scott King Award for children’s literature. This is the first graphic novel to win the Newbery Award, and it’s a good one. I think this will be popular with many children age 10-14, with perhaps added appeal for African-American boys – although the audience is certainly not limited to them. Most children understand the problems of going to a new school, of finding your place in the school hierarchy, of differences in social class, of making friends, of the daily fear of embarrassment that you will say something dumb in school. Jordan Banks is changing schools for 7th grade. His parents have gotten him into an exclusive private school where he will be one of the few black students. Jordan is a talented cartoonist and wants to go to art school instead. He has to navigate the expectations of being around rich kids (even one of the other black students has a CEO father and vacations in Tuscany), of mildly racist and indifferent teachers who can’t remember which black kid is which and who assume that the Black kids must be the aggressors in any conflict; and mildly racist classmates who assume that all the Black kids are on financial assistance, love fried chicken, and are star athletes. There is a lot of humor but also much wisdom that I think will stick with the children who read this. One of the major benefits of reading is to see the world through someone else’s eyes, and this completely succeeds at that.