New Kid: A Newbery Award Winner―A Graphic Novel about Fitting in and Staying True to Yourself

This is a perfect graphic novel for younger readers. Slice of life , being a new kid at a new school navigating school life and for people who are Bipoc how to deal with feeling other. Being called the wrong name constantly.The Graphic Novel deserved the award it got and everyone [young person] should read. It will be relatable to like kids and give others insite and perhaps learn little something?Everything flowed written to drawn pannles. It was a fun and very enjoyable quick read.

I loved it— made me think hard about my future students and what books I want in the classroom. I got caught up in this book— it was so easy and FUN to read. Jerry is an amazing author and Jordan is an amazing character.I recommend! The Kindle version is great too!

Jordan Banks is the new kid at one of the best private schools in the state that offers a wealth of academic and extra-curricular opportunities and experiences for its students and while its prestige is praiseworthy, it is woefully lacking in diversity. Jordan is one of a small number of students of color at the school but just like every other twelve-year-old middle school student has to navigate making new friends, avoiding awkward crushes, getting good grades, and making time to do what he loves most-drawing cartoons. His art is embedded throughout the text and gives the reader an inside look at Jordan’s thoughts on well, just about everything. His drawings are informative, oftentimes laugh-out-loud hilarious, and honest.There’s a gaping void as it concerns the representation of African American youths in books in general across all genres but especially in graphic novels. Jerry Craft expertly enters into this space and gifts us with New Kid. It is a relevant read. A cool, down-to-earth middle school story for everyone. I want to hug this book! I want to read it over and over and then wrap it up and give a copy to every child I know. No doubt that Jerry Craft upholds his mission to “write the books he wishes he had when he was a kid” because this is the sort of book I wish I’d had as a child. No offense to The Baby-Sitters Club series from back in my day, but what about books with characters that look like me and share in my experiences? I would have loved a book like this!I would recommend this book for intermediate elementary students (4th-5th grade), middle school and high school too. I honestly think it will have a wide range of interest much like books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amulet, Sisters, and Drama that are read from elementary school straight through high school.

Please read this book!

Massive congratulations to Jerry Craft for winning the Newbery for New Kid! A graphic novel winning the medal! We are kind of living through a Golden Age of children's fiction, aren't we? It's good to stop every once in a while to just look around and actually notice. It's the whole point of awards.⠀⠀New Kid follows Jordan Banks, a twelve-year-old kid about to start the seventh grade. A budding cartoonist, Jordan wishes for nothing more than to go to art school, but his parents, wishing him to have better opportunities than they had, decide to send him to a more affluent school. A prestigious private school, to be exact. A school where Jordan is one of the few kids of color. Being the new kid is hard enough, but this, in addition to coming from a more modest background than most of his peers, means dealing with a bunch of unwelcome challenges — not least of which being general ignorance and racism — as Jordan just tries to go about his days, trying to figure things out.⠀⠀I really enjoyed New Kid. While I was not a huge fan of the artwork itself, the story and the writing definitely won me over. I really loved — and admired — how it maintained a light and fun tone while also exploring some heavy themes. It's a deceptively casual book in this way. There are depictions of class difference, of code-switching as a person of color, of casual racism and microaggressions, of privilege and lack thereof — and they are all portrayed in the same easy-going manner. Underneath this layer of mellow, though, there's a current of frustration and exasperation that runs all the way through, which makes this casual story lose none of its pointed poignancy. Because being a person of color in this world sometimes means keeping your cool even during the most uncomfortable of times, even if you're a child.⠀⠀But these weighty subjects don't make up the whole of the story. Just as they don't make up the lives of the kids who have to deal with them. One of the central themes in New Kid has to do with Jordan's frustration with books about kids of color being extremely limited in scope: books about white kids can be about anything and still expected to be relatable; books about black kids can only be about Serious Issues and are expected to be read only by black kids. Books about white kids can be fun; books about black kids have to be severe and gritty. Jordan thinks this is extremely unfair nonsense. Because, yes, while kids like him may have to deal with more complicated situations than most others — at the end of the day they're also... just kids. Normal and goofy and beautiful and awkward and nerdy and clever kids who would love to do nothing more than just live and have fun and be happy and to see other kids like them doing likewise. This doesn't mean that books about Serious Issues are not important, only that reality is far more complex, and stories about said reality should reflect it accordingly. Because representation is important. This is what Jerry Craft does with New Kid, and does it elegantly. It's my favorite aspect of this story.⠀It's also a book that's just funny and clever, which is what instantly hooks you. Jordan and his group of friends are instantly likeable and relatable. The art, as I said, wasn't my favorite, but Craft's storytelling is clear and concise, and the book has great pacing because of it.⠀ ⠀It's another one of those books I wish I could give to my younger self. Which is something I often find myself saying about a lot of the kid's books I've recently read. I think that's an inevitable thought to have, though, as someone who spent their childhood reading nothing much at all, after reading a particularly great children's book. There's a sense of deprivation — of having missed out — and wanting to go back and fix that. It's bittersweet, but in a positive way, you know?⠀⠀I digress. ⠀⠀New Kid is a fine book. And it deserved to win the Newbery. And I can't wait to see what that means for the future of graphic novels and children's fiction in general.

Este libro lo leyó en muy poco tiempo. Es muy bueno.

This book addresses matters as prejudice, social inclusion and others in such a unique and uptaded way that what makes it interesting to read.

I finished this book in 1 day. It was a great read! Here is highlight from the book:During pages 84-90, Jordan and Drew were staying in instead of going to the study hall outside because of the temperature outside. They were having a conversation talking about how Ms. Rawle always calls Drew, Deandre and Jordan got called Maury a couple of times too. Drew and Jordan also talked about how many people stared at them during class discussions about slavery, civil rights, financial aid, and sometimes even minority partnerships. After their chat, Ms. Rawle called Drew, Deandre again and talked to him about calling Jordan a “Dawg”. Even though Jordan and Drew knew it was a joke, Ms. Rawle didn't like the type of language he used. Afterwards, Drew told Ms. Rawle about her calling him Deandre a lot of times even though it isn't his name. He even told the teacher about how Andy always calls people “Dawg” and how Ms. Rawle doesn’t make such a big deal about it then.One of the most noticeable highlights in the story is the way, the White teachers mistake characters of colour for other characters by calling them by the wrong name. In particular, Drew is repeatedly mistaken as Deandre by Ms. Rawle, Jordan is mistaken as Maury. Even one of the teachers is mistaken for the football coach. An administrator even does this to an African-American teacher he’s known for fourteen years! Microaggressions are everyday non-verbal or verbal, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional.Even though the microaggressions are most of the time not done on purpose, they do make feelings hurt.

My 9 year old son loves this. It did take him a while to get into it, but when he finished it he immediately started again the next morning.

Jordan Banks is transferred to a new school and is struggling to adapt to the new environment. His school has only few students of color and he is trying to see where he fits in. He sees things(the micro aggressions especially) and we can see his thoughts and views through his drawings.This book not only highlights Banks, it also shows us how Jordan who studies on a financial aid is being teased both for his color and his status. Then there is Drew who stood up to a racist teacher. And with Liam and Alexa, this book gives us a beautiful thought provoking story. I've never read any book like this. Highly recommend!