Jerry Craft (1) (1963–)

he Riverdale Academy Day School crew is back and ready for an adventure to the City of Lights.

This newest installment in Craft’s groundbreaking middle-grade graphic novel series finds eighth grade African American boy Jordan facing a milestone all too familiar to many teenagers: the arrival of a school admissions letter. Attending art school is Jordan’s dream come true, but getting one’s heart’s desire comes with a fresh set of worries. Going to a different school means leaving his show more best friends behind and becoming the new kid once more; worst of all, he only has a few weeks to make up his mind about whether to accept the offer. A school trip to Paris, something that is both exciting and nerve-wracking, stands as a metaphor for the life changes that Jordan is facing, and his friends are on hand to help him make the most of things. At the heart of Craft’s series are the three-dimensional relationships forged among the diverse cast of characters in Jordan’s orbit, and this novel fully delights on that score. From Jordan’s dad, who insists on the family’s watching Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back!!) on VHS; to Andy, his obtuse nemesis who secretly longs for acceptance; and Ramon, the hardworking Nicaraguan classmate for whom this is the trip of a lifetime, readers will love this European escapade with characters who reflect the richness and multiculturalism of modern America.

Another triumph of storytelling filled with heart and wonder. (Graphic fiction. 10-14)

-Kirkus Review show less

Loved this one -- it's got all the freshness that New Kid brought to storytelling, and it centers both a physical and emotional journey. I love the mischief, the real talk, the humor, and the hopefulness -- feels like it offers real solutions to navigating social awkwardness and racism. It also just embraces the beauty and insight that travel can bring. Hard to put down.

Jordan is going into the seventh grade, and his parents have decided that he should attend a top-notch school rather than his neighborhood school in Washington Heights. Jordan would rather go to an art school, but his mother is concerned that he learn the rules of making it in a white world.

On the first day of school, Jordan is picked up by a classmate and his father in an expensive car. The classmate, Liam, has been assigned to show him around and get him acclimated. At first Riverdale show more Academy Day School seems to be a stereotypical nightmare for a black kid: affluent white kids who tease him and teachers who either overcompensate or are unwittingly racist. But Jordan learns that in becoming the new kid at school, he can become a new kid inside, one who sees shades of grey and not just black and white.

I enjoyed this book about fitting in, that doesn't shy away from issues of race and class, but is ultimately hopeful. One of my favorite parts is when the kids go to a book fair, and there are two kinds of books: mainstream books with colorful covers and stories full of hope, and African American books with a depressingly realistic photo on the cover and protagonists who live in the 'hood in broken homes, and with blurbs like "A gritty, urban reminder of the grit of today's urban grittiness."

The artwork alternates between full color spreads and black and white ones. The pages depicting Jordan's drawings have simple pencil artwork. The text is funny, allowing the reader to laugh, but at the same time is bittersweet about the difficulties of being the new kid. The author wrote two more books in this series. show less

Jordan Banks takes readers down the rabbit hole and into his mostly white prep school in this heartbreakingly accurate middle-grade tale of race, class, microaggressions, and the quest for self-identity.

He may be the new kid, but as an African-American boy from Washington Heights, that stigma entails so much more than getting lost on the way to homeroom. Riverdale Academy Day School, located at the opposite end of Manhattan, is a world away, and Jordan finds himself a stranger in a foreign show more land, where pink clothing is called salmon, white administrators mistake a veteran African-American teacher for the football coach, and white classmates ape African-American Vernacular English to make themselves sound cool. Jordan’s a gifted artist, and his drawings blend with the narrative to give readers a full sense of his two worlds and his methods of coping with existing in between. Craft skillfully employs the graphic-novel format to its full advantage, giving his readers a delightful and authentic cast of characters who, along with New York itself, pop off the page with vibrancy and nuance. Shrinking Jordan to ant-sized proportions upon his entering the school cafeteria, for instance, transforms the lunchroom into a grotesque Wonderland in which his lack of social standing becomes visually arresting and viscerally uncomfortable.

An engrossing, humorous, and vitally important graphic novel that should be required reading in every middle school in America. (Graphic fiction. 10-14)

-Kirkus Review show less