Class Act (sequel to New Kid) by Jerry Craft

Class Act is, quite simply, everything you could want in a sequel. Jordan Banks returns for his second year at the exclusive RAD (Riverdale Academy Day School) along with his friends Drew Ellis and Liam Landers. Though Jordan and Drew are two of the few African Americans at RAD, they are grappling with different issues. Jordan still would rather go to art school, but his mother insists he get an education at RAD, while his dad is a little more understanding. Jordan is also worried about his physical self. All the other boys are tall and more manly smelling, but Jordan is still much shorter, less developed and has no body odor, not even after a gym workout.  

Drew, on the other hand, returns to school taller and stronger. He also has a new hairstyle, one that some of the non-Black students can't keep themselves from touching no matter how often he asks them to stop. Drew is also having issues about being a Black scholarship student in a predominately white school. Drew, who lives with his hard working grandmother in Co-Op City, must two buses from one part of the Bronx to get to RAD in a wealthy section of the Bronx, while other students arrive by car or limo. What he sees begins to come to a head when his clueless principal tells Drew that RAD is making an effort to promote diversity, equality and inclusion and has adopted an urban sister school and would like Drew to show them around when the students visit. Their visit highlights for Drew the contrast between resources at RAD and their school, which lacks so much including a decent library and cafeteria.  

After he and Jordan visit very wealthy Liam over Thanksgiving break, Drew finds that he is having a hard time with his feelings of the unfairness of things and maintaining his friendship with Liam. As long as their friendship is on campus or at Liam's home, Drew feels uncomfortable. Can he find a way to navigate their friendship so that they are able to see, respect, and support each other mutually?

I loved New Kid so I was really anxious to read Class Act. But it is a great sequel and yet, it can stand alone. I liked the focus on Drew because it allowed Jerry Craft to center the story on him and what his life is like. Jordan is a smart, light-skinned, middle class African American who lives with loving parents; Liam is a smart, very rich, privileged, blond haired white kid who lives in a mansion with an absentee father and a socialite mother; by contrast, Drew is a smart, athletic, dark-skinned working class African American living with his loving grandmother. 

Beside these socioeconomic differences, these three kids also enable Craft to address issues of how differently people are treated based on their skin color. Jordan captures the way teachers and students treat him differently than how they treat Drew in one of his black and white two-page comic commentaries that are scattered through the story.

I was happy to see that Craft address the issue of unwanted hair touching after Drew grows his out. Jordan also illustrates this in his comic commentary. This is something that apparently white people do, but I don't quite understand why, I just know it's wrong. And yes, there are other cringe-worthy microaggressions throughout, especially thanks to Drew's nemesis Andy, who for a period has green skin and is teased about it. Would such an experience change a person? It should.

And while so much of this novel may sound heavy and serious, there is plenty of humor throughout. To begin with, at the beginning of every chapter is a parody of covers from other loved graphic novels, beginning with the Wimpy Kid, and including New Kid.  

I can't recommend this novel and its predecessor highly enough. The format is perfect, the message in spot on and resonates so well in today's world. Don't miss it and if you haven't read New Kid yet, what are you waiting for?

This book is recommended for readers age 9+

This book was an eARC received from Edelweiss+

Be sure to check out the other Marvelous Middle Grade Monday offerings, 

now being carried on by Greg at Always in the Middle.

The 2018 Cybils MG Fiction Winner: The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson

Candice Miller, 12, isn't too happy to be spending the summer in her deceased grandmother's house in Lambert, South Carolina with her mom and away from her dad in Atlanta, especially now that her parents are divorced. Candice's grandmother Abigail Caldwell had been Lamert's first African American city manager but her notoriety came from being the person who ordered the town's historic tennis courts dug up while looking for a hidden treasure, a/k/a the Parker inheritance. Needless to say, Abigail lost her job as town manager.

Candice has been missing her friends back home, and the only possible would-be friend is shy Brandon Jones, the 11-year-old bookish kid living across the street. They don't really click at first, but when Brandon is picked on by two boys who get a little rough, he finds himself in Candice's house. With nothing else to do, they head up to the attic looking for books. While rummaging around up there, Candice finds a letter containing the first challenge that began her grandmother's search for the buried treasure ten years earlier, and it was in a box marked For Candice. After the reading the letter, Candice is also convinced that there is buried treasure somewhere in Lambert and she sure would like to find it, then maybe they wouldn't have to sell their house in Atlanta. But who are the people mentioned in the letter: Enoch, Leanne, and Siobhan Washington, and the Allen family? And why did the letter writer want to ruin the Allen family? And why did certain people in Lambert fail to protect the Washingtons and against what? And how could Abigail Caldwell have made right what once went so utterly wrong? Oh, yes, and who wrote the letter in the first place?

Most importantly, how was Candice supposed to find the answers to her questions with only her father's old iPod and not cell phone or computer to connect to the internet? Candice decides it's time to share her discovery with Brandon, and as the two investigate the mystery of the buried treasure, they also begin to become friends.

Candice also has her grandmother to thank for sending her all those puzzle books year after year or was she being primed for this mystery? And then there's her grandmother's guiding words of wisdom: "Just because you don't see the path doesn't mean it's not there." (pg. 28).  The more Candice and Brandon research, the more they discover, and the puzzle surrounding the mystery of the buried treasure in Lambert, South Carolina reveals the the town's racial history of bigotry, segregation, and hate, attitudes that are still present among some of its citizens. So, why would anyone ever want to leave a treasure worth $40,000,000 to this town?

The Parker Inheritance is one of those books that will keep you reading simply because you can't put it down. I love a good mystery and I particularly loved this one because to the way it shows readers that, as William Faulkner once wrote, "the past is never dead. It's not even past," it may just be buried as Lamber had buried its past until two determined, smart kids come along and dig it up, forcing the citizens to finally really look at their past history. As each new puzzle piece is solved, a flashback to earlier times reveals the backstory of those people mentioned in the letter, including the mysterious letter writer.

Candice and Brandon are great characters. Candice's desire to solve the mystery and hopefully save the house she grew up in and her parent's marriage and her wish to clear her beloved grandmother's name are the driving factors for her obsession with the hidden treasure. She is a nicely flawed protagonist, as is Brandon, who is bullied by kids who believe he is gay. The town of Lambert is a third character, a place of hidden secrets under a thin deceptive, decorative veneer just waiting to be exposed.

The interjection of Lambert's history and its treatment of the Washington family give depth to Candice and Brandon's discoveries, and also provides a very realistic picture of what live was life for African Americans in living there. Johnson explores themes of race relations, racial identity, social injustice, preconceived ideas, acceptance, divorce, and sexual identity. This makes it sound like an issue-heavy book, but Johnson expertly keeps a light touch when needed. Also, you may wish to read or reread The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, which gets more than a passing shoutout.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was purchased for my personal library

The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by E.B. Lewis

Clover, a young African American girl, has been told by her mama not to climb over the fence that runs through her town and separates her house from the one next store.  But now it is summer and Clover sees a white girl hanging out by the fence.  Not speaking, they simply stare at each other.

One day when Clover's friends are over, playing jump rope, the girl asks if she can play with them, but one of them just says no!

Whenever Clover sees the other girl in town, they both watch each other, but Clover thinks the other girl looks sad.  Sometimes, she sees the girl out playing in the rain by herself.

One morning, when Clover gets close to the fence, the girl asks her name and tells her that her name is Annie.  Not allowed to go over the fence, the girls decide to sit on it.  After all, they weren't told they couldn't do that.

Eventually, they ask if they can join the jump rope game that Clover's friends are playing near the fence.  And when all the girls get tired of jumping, they sit together on the fence, talking.  The story ends on a hopeful note for the future that one day the fence will be knocked down.

The purpose of a fence is to separate people, to make sure that those on either side of the fence stay where they "belong".   But, in The Other Side, it shows us how simple it is to bridge a fence, and how it can even become the site of understanding and acceptance rather than exclusion.  It made me thing of the words "And a little child shall lead them".

Clearly, in Jacqueline Woodson's story, The Other Side, the fence is a metaphor for segregation.  It is a story about race relations in this country, set in the 1950s, judging by Annie's saddle shoes and the dresses on the girls, just before the Civil Rights Movement really came into its own and began to tear long standing, racial divisive fences down.

Added to Woodson's beautiful words are the realistic watercolor illustrations of E. B. Lewis.  Lewis always pays such detail to the subject of his illustrations, and The Other Side is no different.  These important visual details help us to situate the time of the story, yet oddly enough, because no time period is actually mentioned, and despite these visual clues, Lewis manages to give the story the same timeless quality that Woodson achieves.

The Other Side will leave you feeling uplifted and hopeful.  Don't miss it!

This book is recommended for readers age 6+
This book was borrowed from the NYPL