New Kid by Jerry Craft

Here is an honest school story based on author Jerry Craft's own experiences as a new kid of color in a predominately white school.

Jordan Banks, an African American 12-year-old has always gone to school in his Washington Heights neighborhood with his friends. Jordan is a smart kid and a gifted artist and really wanted to go to art school. Instead, as he enters 7th grade, Jordan finds himself in a new school, Riverdale Academy Day School or RAD, a black student in a nearly all-white school in the Bronx.

Mrs. Banks works in publishing and is dismayed at the underrepresentation of people of color in it. She's very excited about her son attending RAD, convinced it will open doors for him, and a chance at opportunities she and Jordan's dad didn't have, and couldn't give him themselves. But Jordan's dad isn't quite on board with it, having left the corporate world to work in the neighborhood community center, and promises Jordan, if he's still  want to go to art school by 9th grade, he will be allowed to.

While being shown around on the first day of school by Liam, a rich white boy, the first thing Jordan notices is that everyone is wearing pink or rather 'salmon' colored shirts. The second thing is that there are very few kids who look like him in his grade. There's Maury, who has been at the school since kindergarten and whose father is a CEO, and there's sophomore Deandre and his sidekicks, who likes to bully the younger kids. And there is Andrew - actually there are two of them, one is a braggy white boy who likes to use black slang thinking it makes him sound cool; the other Andrew, called Drew, is a black student on financial aid and who is, like Jordan, constantly being called by the wrong name by teachers and fellow students. Most of the teachers are white, but there is one African American math teacher, Mr. Garner, who is sometimes mistaken for the football coach by the school's white administrators, even after 14 years of teaching.

Resigned to the fact that he's in RAD at least for 7th grade, Jordan slowly begins to make a few friends and I use this term loosely, settle in. Jordan does worry about drifting away from his old friends from the Heights, but eventually reconnects with his oldest and best friend, Kirk. Slowly, as he is pulled into this school and its activities, Jordan begins to realize he can bridge the two different parts of his life. Throughout it all, he chronicles everything in his sketchbook.

My Kiddo and I were both educated in New York City public schools, in my case right up to my PhD, and I've always taught in public school, so I can't speak to the authenticity of what I read in New Kid, though I do believe that Craft has created a very authentic experience at RAD for Jordan Banks. Jordan is part of a strong, loving family that provides him with lots of support. He has a wonderful relationship with his father and his grandfather, and while the family isn't as wealthy as the other kids in RAD, they aren't living in poverty either. And most importantly, Jordan does not come across as a stereotype.

The story covers the whole 7th grade year of school, a year in which there is not one big conflict that Jordan has to deal with and where he comes out a changed person at the end. But that's the point - it is a year of almost daily insults, of often feeling lost and alone, and of micro-aggressions at every turn. Jordan is a great kid, creative and imaginative, observing everything around him and capturing it all in his sketchbook, much of it done with humor. For example, there's the two page black and white spread of his mother trying to take pictures with a camera using film, or his father's instructions for shaking hands, and how about the one called "Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones But at Least Get My Name Right."

In addition to Jordan, Craft has created a grade full of characters that at first might be seen as stereotypical (and in some ways they are) but, as you get to know them, they also have their own individuality. The teachers, well...hmm, they were painfully awful.

New Kid is a funny accessible book but one that takes its social commentary very seriously. It is a book that will be appreciated by middle grade readers regardless of their circumstances, either because they will relate to Jordan or because it will enlighten them about what it is like to feel like a fish out of water.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was borrowed from the NYPL