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Harnessing Anger: The Inner Discipline of Athletic Excellence 

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Harnessing Anger: The Inner Discipline of Athletic Excellence 

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Peter Westbrook's memoir

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Blades of Glory: Meet Our Black Olympian Fencers

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Blades of Glory: Meet Our Black Olympian Fencers

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Angélica Dass

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Policies and practices that favor incarceration over education do us all a grave injustice.

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In Meridian, Miss., police routinely arrest and transport youths to a juvenile detention center for minor classroom misbehaviors. In Jefferson Parish, La., according to a U.S. Department of Justice complaint, school officials have given armed police "unfettered authority to stop, frisk, detain, question, search and arrest schoolchildren on and off school grounds." In Birmingham, Ala., police officers are permanently stationed in nearly every high school.

In fact, hundreds of school districts across the country employ discipline policies that push students out of the classroom and into the criminal justice system at alarming rates-a phenomenon known as the school-to-prison pipeline.

Last month, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., held the first federal hearing on the school-to-prison pipeline-an important step toward ending policies that favor incarceration over education and disproportionately push minority students and students with disabilities out of schools and into jails.

In opening the hearing, Durbin told the subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, "For many young people, our schools are increasingly a gateway to the criminal justice system. This phenomenon is a consequence of a culture of zero tolerance that is widespread in our schools and is depriving many children of their fundamental right to an education."

A wide array of organizations-including the Southern Poverty Law Center, the NAACP and Dignity in Schools-offered testimony during the hearing. They joined representatives from the Departments of Education and Justice to shine a national spotlight on a situation viewed far too often as a local responsibility.

"We have a national problem that deserves federal action," Matthew Cregor, an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, explained. "With suspension a top predictor of dropout, we must confront this practice if we are ever to end the 'dropout crisis' or the so-called achievement gap." In the words of Vermont's Sen. Patrick Leahy, "As a nation, we can do better."

What is the School-to-Prison Pipeline?

Policies that encourage police presence at schools, harsh tactics including physical restraint, and automatic punishments that result in suspensions and out-of-class time are huge contributors to the pipeline, but the problem is more complex than that.

The school-to-prison pipeline starts (or is best avoided) in the classroom. When combined with zero-tolerance policies, a teacher's decision to refer students for punishment can mean they are pushed out of the classroom-and much more likely to be introduced into the criminal justice system.

Who's in the Pipeline?

Students from two groups-racial minorities and children with disabilities-are disproportionately represented in the school-to-prison pipeline. African-American students, for instance, are 3.5 times more likely than their white classmates to be suspended or expelled, according to a nationwide study by the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights.

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In Meridian, Miss., police routinely arrest and transport youths to a juvenile detention center for minor classroom misbehaviors. In Jefferson Parish, La., according to a U.S. Department of Justice complaint, school officials have given armed police "unfettered authority to stop, frisk, detain, question, search and arrest schoolchildren on and off school grounds."

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Author | Speaker | Producer | Poet | Kwame Alexander

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Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, producer and #1 New York Times Bestselling author of 38 books, including AN AMERICAN STORY, THE DOOR OF NO RETURN, BECOMING MUHAMMAD ALI

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Tiffany Jewell – This Book is Anti-Racist – Children’s Book Council

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Today we're thrilled to welcome Tiffany Jewell to the WNDB blog to talk about her new book, This Book Is Anti-Racist.
Learn about identities, true histories, and anti-racism work in 20 carefully laid out chapters. Written by anti-bias, anti-racist, educator and activist, Tiffany Jewell, and illustrated by French illustrator Aurélia Durand in kaleidoscopic vibrancy.

This book is written for the young person who doesn't know how to speak up to the racist adults in their life. For the 14-year-old who sees injustice at school and isn't able to understand the role that racism plays in separating them from their friends. For the kid who spends years trying to fit into the dominant culture and loses themselves for a little while. It's for all of the Black and Brown children who have been harmed (physically and emotionally) because no one stood up for them or they couldn't stand up for themselves; because the color of their skin, the texture of their hair, their names made white folks feel scared and threatened.

How do you define anti-racism and why do you think it is important?

Anti-racism is always building and developing one's consciousness of injustice and oppression. It's seeking truth and growing with that knowledge. It's actively defying racism, white supremacist culture, and the status quo that have been established by the dominant culture for so long. It is not achieved by taking a one-day training or even a semester-long course. It is lifelong work.

Anti-racism is how we regain our humanity. It's how we exist in community (small and large) that truly honors everyone. It allows us to understand and reckon with our past so we can build a just future for ourselves and repair the damage that has been done.

How did you come to anti-bias, anti-racist education?

I feel like it has always been within me, I just didn't always have the proper term/label to describe the way I interact with children and families. There were some clear moments that lead me to use my Anti-Bias Anti-Racist (ABAR) lens in education- from my own experiences in the Syracuse City Schools, to working with toddlers and preschoolers in West Philly, and growing as a Montessori elementary teacher have really led me to the work I do now.

For a long time, I felt like I was doing the work of Anti-Racist and Anti-Bias education on my own (in our small independent school). In 2016, I attended my first Montessori for Social Justice Conference and felt so held and loved by a community of educators who, not only, work in the Montessori pedagogy like me, but are also working for freedom and justice. I've been able to gain deep and solid friendships with folx within that community and they continue to inspire, educate, share, listen, and support me in my own growth as an ABAR educator.

How has anti-racism education influenced you as a parent and as a teacher?

Anti-racism has helped me to have a clearer understanding of the world around me, how we got here, and it has helped me to shape a clear vision of what an anti-racist, just society could and will be like. As a teacher, this lens of anti-racism has helped me to see, hold, and support every child who walks through the classroom doors. I have become a much more flexible teacher who trusts my students. I am able to build strong relationships with families and support the whole child, rather than trying to fit the child into the box of normalcy.

In parenting (and as a teacher), anti-racism has empowered me to be able to have open and honest discussions with my children. I am a Black biracial mama raising two white presenting cisgender boys. My children (ages 3 and 7 ½) have conversations about race and racism, power, white supremacy, injustice, freedom, and white, cisgender, male privilege. We don't hide the truth from our little ones because they can handle it. If we say nothing, we're telling our children we are complicit with racism and oppression, and we are not.

Who did you write this book for?

I wrote this book for everyone. This is the book I wish I had when I was nine years old, sitting in a classroom with a racist teacher. I wrote this for all my former students who always want to know more and want to know that, even though they're young, they do have the agency to make impactful change. And, this is the book I want my children to read. I wrote this book for parents and families, for educators and administrators, I wrote it for all the students and children who live in our racialized society (which is everywhere). This book is for our ancestors. It's for our futures. And, it's for all the young BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), like Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice, who suffer the consequences of systemic racism and violence and should not be simply memorialized in our hashtags.

What effect do you hope this book will have on the reader?

I hope this book opens up a door for a deeper understanding of our collective history of racism. Everyone who reads this will have the opportunity to reflect, grow, and move towards working in solidarity with others. Readers are encouraged to build their anti-racist capacity and create action that disrupts racism. I hope every reader will see themselves in this book and be moved to work towards liberation.

Who has had the largest influence on you as an educator and writer?

My mom and my sister have always been my biggest advocates and fans. My twin sister has always been my reflection and my sounding board. My mom raised us to be conscious of race and class and helped us to establish a solid framework for justice in our youth.

As an educator, my biggest influences are children and families. They are always at the core of what I do. Entrusting teachers and schools to care for our children-who are, basically, our walking hearts-is enormous and I believe I owe it to all the families to speak the truth and fight for them.

I always look to the work and wisdom of Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum; her book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together In the Cafeteria and Other Conversations about Race is one I go back to nearly every year and has really helped me to develop a clear understanding racial identity development in children (and adults).

As a writer, I am just now coming into my writer self and often reflect on James Baldwin and his role as a truth teller. I look to all the Black, Brown, and Indigenous authors and writers who share their stories, speak our truths and honor our past histories, our collective ability to mobilize and move forward and resist the dominant culture of assimilation. Currently, I am always inspired by Malcolm X and Alex Haley, Dr. Brittney Cooper, Christine Platt, Jane Austen, Danzy Senna, and Zadie Smith.

What are some other anti-racist books for children or teens that you can recommend?

We are finally coming into an era of our #OwnVoices being honored, heard, and read. There are a lot of great books for young folx that share and amplify the voices of people who have been silenced and marginalized for so long.

Some of the books we've loved and are most excited for in our family are:

For the littlest ones:

Be Boy Buzz by bell hooks, Counting on Community by Innosanto Nagara, and An ABC of Equality by Chana Ginelle Ewing.

For the young readers:

We Came to America by Faith Ringgold, You Hold Me Up by Monique Grey Smith, and the ABCs of the Black Panther Party by Chema Morales-James and Khalilah Brann

For the YA readers:

Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes, A Different Mirror for Young People: A History of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki, Color Me In by Natasha Díaz, and Watch Us Rise by Renée Watson and Ellen Hagan

I love children's and YA books. I could really go on and on with book lists!

* * * * * *

Tiffany Jewell is a Black biracial writer, parent and Montessori educator who has been doing the work of dismantling white supremacy through education for fourteen years. In addition to her job as a teacher, she has designed curriculums, given workshops, and presented at conferences on her work addressing social inequity through the lenses of race, class, immigration, and gender. She is also the co-founder of #AntiRacistBookClub, an Instagram ( ) campaign that recommends anti-racist books. Her debut book, This Book is Anti-Racist, is the first book about anti-racism published for teenagers and aims to empower young people to disrupt racist systems that previous generations have put in place.

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Q&A with Tiffany Jewell: THIS BOOK IS ANTI-RACIST

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Today we're thrilled to welcome Tiffany Jewell to the WNDB blog to talk about her new book, This Book Is Anti-Racist. Learn about identities, true histories, and anti-racism work in 20 carefu...

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JPR Talks About Black Brother, Black Brother on the podcast Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books with Zibby Owes

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JPR Talks About Black Brother, Black Brother on the podcast Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books with Zibby Owes

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Home (PoF) - Children's Fiction by Jewell Parker Rhodes

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The Louisiana Girls Trilogy are stories of young girls coming of age and finding the strength to overcome adversity. They are steeped in the folklore of the deep south of America and are hugely popular with young readers.

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Americans have always assumed that the key to undoing the all-encompassing framework of white supremacy lies, in part, in literacy. Literacy helped combat slavery in practical ways - reading and writing meant you could more easily escape by forging free papers, for example. But there was also literacy's metaphysical promise - that you could write your way into new futures, into places that existed outside of imaginations made narrow by anti-blackness. Think of Frederick Douglass tricking white boys into teaching him to form letters, or Toni Morrison proudly displaying a letter from the Texas Board of Corrections declaring that it had banned her novel "Paradise," because of its potential to start a riot. Books and reading are dangerous, which is why the question of which books are made available to children is always contested.

STAMPED: RACISM, ANTIRACISM, AND YOU (Little, Brown, 258 pp., $18.99; ages 12 and up) is both explicitly and implicitly in conversation with this tradition. Written by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds, it's billed as a "remix" of Kendi's best-selling "Stamped From the Beginning," which won the 2016 National Book Award for nonfiction. "I wish I learned this history at your age," Kendi writes in an introductory note. "But there were no books telling the complete story of racist ideas." Collaborating with the award-winning Reynolds, who was recently named the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, seems like a natural. Kendi calls him "a great writer in the purest sense," one who "makes my head bop from side to side."

To that end, Reynolds and Kendi have created a book that slyly draws attention to the page itself. "Uh-oh. The R-word," they write. The word that "for many of us still feels Rated R. Or can be matched only with the other R word - run. But don't. Let's all just take a deep breath. Inhale. Hold it. Exhale and breathe out" - and here, the text breaks apart to give us the dangerous word - "race" - in the thick black font you see on a crate spelling out "Explosives." This ingenious device allows the reader time and visual space, making manifest the moment of stillness after a theoretical bomb has dropped.

Reynolds's engaging, clear prose shines a light on difficult and confusing subjects, including anti-blackness and the creation of racial capitalism. Terms like "segregationist," "integrationist" and "anti-racist" are defined in direct, accessible language, becoming real tools for a reader to take from the book. This is no easy feat. These ideas are the water that we all swim in. But the book's pauses of white space and radical changes in font and text size force the reader to stop and really consider what is being deconstructed.

An early chapter titled "Time Out" recaps why Europeans decided that "Africans were savages." Reynolds tells his reader, "You will see these ideas repeated over and over again throughout this book. But that's not a good enough reason for you to stop reading. So ... don't even try."

Then he does an even greater thing, a thing of grace. The next chapter is "Time In." It is one sentence long. That sentence is "AFRICANS ARE NOT SAVAGES."

Reynolds is acknowledging the feeling of reading this book as a young person - the despair and anger at hearing these ideas that cruelly govern so much of our lives. By stopping the narrative to account for a young reader's reaction, he expands the purpose of Kendi's original project in a singularly powerful way.

The theorist Paulo Freire wrote, "The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us." Reynolds and Kendi have given readers the spade they need to dig it out.

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Can You Dismantle White Supremacy With Words? (Published 2020)

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Americans have always assumed that the key to undoing the all-encompassing framework of white supremacy lies, in part, in literacy. Literacy helped combat slavery in practical ways - reading and writing meant you could more easily escape by forging free papers, for example.

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Ibram X. Kendi is a contributing writer at The Atlantic; and Mellon Professor and Director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. Kendi is also the author of How to Be an Antiracist.

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Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of many award-winning books, including Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks and more.

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After his award-winning bookcame out in 2016, Ibram X. Kendi heard from people everywhere, telling him it opened their eyes to a new way of looking at history.

"They were coming up to me and saying, 'It feels too late now. I wish I had read this in middle school,' " he says.

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, follows five historical figures - like the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and the activist Angela Davis - and offers readers unwashed versions of who they were, and the role that racist ideas played in their lives.

Kendi, an author and historian at American University, says history books in schools today too often don't offer students a deep enough perspective or account of who people were and what they did.

Which led him to take up the challenge of those people who wished they'd learned these lessons in middle school: Give young people access to this history by collaborating with a writer who could take his facts (the history) and write it for a younger audience.

In his mind there was only one person to do it: the children's book author, Jason Reynolds. When he let Reynolds in on this plan, he got a surprising answer: No.

"History is not my thing. I'm a fiction writer!" Reynolds explains. But Kendi persisted, and eventually Reynolds caved. "I realized [Kendi] believed in me more than I believed in myself," he says.

Their new book is called Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, and right from its first few pages the authors promise that, "this is not a history book." Instead, they say, it's a book that mixes past with present - in a way that young adults can relate to.

"History books are written with the idea of a student in mind, but not the idea of an actual young person themselves," says Reynolds. So this book sets out to do just that, and Reynolds says it's filled with "the things that I needed someone to say to me when I was 15 years old."

In a high school in Washington D.C., NPR met with the two authors and a group of high school students who had read the book. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Jason, why were you hesitant to say yes to Kendi's request?

Reynolds: I wasn't sort of a top notch scholar, that I wasn't a part of sort of my story, my journey. And so if a scholar comes to you and asks you to sort of make an adaptation or translation of work that they've poured themselves into, and you don't necessarily see yourself in the same playing field, it can be a little intimidating.
Once you got to yes, then what? How do you write a remix of something that already exists?
Reynolds: History books are written with the idea of a student in mind, but not the idea of an actual young person, just the person themselves. School is for a few hours a day. But, like, there aren't history books written for that kid when school is over, when the bell has rung. And so that's sort of what I'm thinking about this particular book: 'Can I make this something cool?' Because there's currency in cool. There always has been, there always will be. It matters to them. It mattered to me. It still matters to me, right? If it ain't cool I'm probably not gonna rock with it. This is how I am. I'm still that person. So I wanted to try to figure out how to make this really complex thing that has all this information that he gave the world, how do I take it and make it feel like a fresh pair of Jordans.
Before you read this book, what did you know about the history of racist ideas or racism?
Emani James, 10th grade: I go back to like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks and Malcolm X, we don't ever learn about what happened before then. Who knew about the first person who was ever racist? Like, I didn't learn about that. And I wouldn't even think it was in the 1400s!

With history, people like to cut off certain parts that they don't want to tell us. Like they're not gonna tell us the deep, deep stuff. You know, like they just gonna tell us the deep stuff.
Do you feel like it's because you're young?
James: I mean it partly is because we're young. But us being young, we still have a great mind.
So, Ibram, did you encounter folks who felt like students were too young to learn this history?
Kendi: There were times in which people would ask, 'are young people ready for this history?' And it was a shocking question because it's so foreign to me that anyone could not recognize how we have so many young, brilliant minds who even, you know, in seventh grade, let alone 10th grade, can understand this history. Not only understand it, but apply it to their own lives. They start to get more clarity about their own lives, they are able to understand their country. And so for me, this getting deep, deep, deep, that really actually protects our young people. So we think we're protecting them by not getting deep. We're actually protecting them by getting deep, by allowing them to really understand this nation's history.
In the book you have three categories that you put people and ideas in. What are those three categories and why use that approach?
Kendi: One of the things we're trying to do with this book is provide people with the vocabulary of how to speak about and understand racism. Know what intimately racism is and how to identify it with language. What we're trying to do is give people the ability to name what they see, what they experience, what they should be resisting.

So there are the segregationists, which Jason calls the haters.

Reynolds: The haters. Segregationists are the haters. Everybody knows what a hater is. All right. Haters. Especially when I was in school. And I know it's no different for y'all. Haters are the people who hate you just cause you ain't like them.

Kendi: And then there's the assimilationist. Who are the likers.

Reynolds: Likers. Your fake friends. I mean, everybody, got 'em, everybody knows them too. Everybody knows the phonies. And they're basically the ones who like you, but they like you because you are like them. You know, that is contingent upon you being like them.

Kendi: And then there's the anti-racists, who are the lovers.

Reynolds: And the lovers. Those are your day ones, as we say. Our 'ride or dies.' The ones who love us for being like us. They love us for who we are, not for who they are, and not for who we are to them, but for who we are to us.
In the book, you apply these definitions to the ideas people have - and often, the same people write about or speak about a combination of the three, meaning people can evolve and change.
Kendi: If people say an assimilationist idea or anti-racist idea or segregationist idea, then you apply it, even if it's somebody who's your hero. I also think we should give people the ability to change. So W.E.B. Du Bois was born in 1868 and he died literally the night before the March on Washington in 1963. That's nine decades. What he was saying, particularly in the 1890s, was more along the lines of assimilationist ideas. But by the time he was in the 1930s and 1940s, he had transformed and was largely articulating anti-racist ideas. This is what we hope for people. We want people to change and we have to give people that ability to change, but also recognize who they were at an earlier time.

Reynolds: I did have friends be like, 'yo, so I don't know, man. What you said about Dr. King kind of hurt! And I'm like, 'first of all, it wasn't me, blame it on Dr. Kendi. Those are my words, but that's all his information.'

I do think it's important that we are honest about even our heroes. It doesn't make them any less heroes, nor does it make their contributions any less powerful. But it does help us sort of get into the nuances of it all. And it does also show how fluid some of that stuff was, and has been, and is, for a lot of us. But that we should always be aiming toward anti-racism.

James: Who is your target market for this? Is it really for everybody?

Reynolds: I never write void of the scope in which I've come. I was a young black person. It is natural for me to speak to young black people. The book is for everybody, but I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't sort of imagining [Emani's] face. There's certain things that I do want to say to black kids, right? Like that part in Chapter 6 when I write, "Africans aren't savages." Right. That's for us. We're not savages. That was specifically for you.

Amir Perkins, 11th grade: I was surprised there were black people who had racist ideas.

Kendi: Right, you're talking about Leo Africanus. Just like you have black people today who tell white people what they want to hear in order to improve their standing among white people, black people were doing that back in the 1500s! For me, if anyone is saying that there's something wrong with black people, they're saying a racist idea and it doesn't matter their skin color.

Amir: As educated black men, when you're in a certain situation, do you sometimes feel as though white people are intimidated by your status?

Reynolds: The thing about anti-racism that to me that sits at the core of who I am is that I should never have to make myself small for everyone else to feel comfortable about my existence. Right. Why? I earned it like everybody else earns it. And I'm going to be proudly who I am in every space that I am, because I belong everywhere that I choose to go. Self-actualization is at the core of an anti-racist world.

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A History Book That Isn't: Finding A Way To Teach Racism To A New Generation

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Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi team up to investigate the history of racist ideas through a narrative that's aimed at young adult readers. It's called: Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You.

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A Conversation with Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

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Nikole Hannah-Jones Talks to Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi About Their Book, “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You”

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Nikole Hannah-Jones, founder of the 1619 Project, spoke to Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi about their collaboration on Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You.

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The author's new graphic novel, about a black student enrolling in a predominantly white private school, tells powerful truths about racism and alienation with humor and heart.

Photo by Hollis King

Scores of authors have written about being the new kid at school, but few have done it as effectively, or as sensitively, as Jerry Craft. His graphic novel New Kid (HarperCollins, Feb. 2019; Gr 4-7) follows middle schooler Jordan Banks, who has a rude awakening when he enrolls at the wealthy, predominantly white Riverdale Academy. Teachers view black students like Jordan with a mixture of hostility and condescension, confusing him with his friend Drew and assuming both boys are on financial aid.

Though the book takes on tough issues, Craft didn't want to write a depressing story. He kept the laughs coming with offbeat characters and Jordan's hilarious yet spot-on commentary in his sketchbook.

Blending humor and insight comes easy to Craft, who has explored diabetes and AIDS in his syndicated comic strip Mama's Boyz. "Somewhere along the line, I became the guy who turned serious messages into palatable things."

Craft was inspired by Schoolhouse Rock and Fat Albert, entertaining programs that also offered lessons. And New Kid oozes pop culture references: Straight Outta Compton, Fight Club, Eat Pray Love, and more. "When I took my sons to see Shrek, I was laughing hysterically," says Craft. "So I wanted something that an adult could find equally as funny."

Like Jordan, Craft lived in Washington Heights and experienced culture shock when he began attending a private school, whereas his children have gone to private school for most of their lives. He drew from both his and his sons' experiences, and his children's input was invaluable. "They read every version," he says. "I relied on their feedback to make it authentic."

New Kid is the book Craft wishes his younger self and his children had had. He was a reluctant reader as a child, while his sons devoured series like Jeff Kinney's "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" and Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson." But they rarely found books about black protagonists who mirrored their own lives.

On school visits, Craft notices that many of the children's books featuring African Americans are set in the past-and don't inspire the kind of fervor as "Wimpy Kid." "A lot of the historical fiction, even though it's very important, you read it once, you do your book report, and you're done. You don't pretend to be Frederick Douglass," says Craft.

And his sons didn't connect with novels about African American boys eking out bleak existences in poor neighborhoods-a far cry from the worlds of Harry Potter or Percy Jackson. Craft cleverly critiques this difference in New Kid, when Miss Brickner, a white librarian, gives a white student an exciting fantasy but hands a black student, Maury, The Mean Streets of South Uptown. She gushes about how much he'll relate to its fatherless, low-income protagonist, but a bemused Maury is quick to point out that his dad is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

"Lots of times, kids of color get painted with a broad brush," Craft says. Indeed, many black authors he knows have been advised to depict characters who don't have fathers, because that's what white editors and publishers see as authentic. But Jordan has strong bonds with both his dad and his grandfather. "I wanted to almost overcompensate," Craft notes.

Craft has also observed that many authors seem reluctant to give black characters lighthearted stories. He almost fell into that trap, writing about a teacher who unfairly punishes Jordan's friend Drew while letting their white classmate off the hook. But Craft's sons begged him to give the scene an upbeat resolution. "I guess I owe my sons some pizza for that," he says. "I like it better that nothing bad did happen."

Nuanced characterization also makes New Kid a standout. "I didn't want it to be like all the black kids are great, all the white kids are bad, because that's not life," says Craft. Thus, Jordan connects much more with Liam, who's white, than with Maury. And Jordan and Drew talk about more than their feelings of alienation-they have fun debates about superheroes, too.

New Kid's lessons about race and privilege aren't just for young people. Educators have much to learn from Jordan's story. On one school visit, Craft arrived ready to talk to the students, only for a white teacher to assume he was there to there to fix the copier. And African American teachers have told Craft that their white colleagues still get their names wrong, even after years of working at a school.

He hopes that the teachable moments in the book will push adult readers to reconsider their own biases. "Take that extra second. Learn someone's name. Have a conversation. Look them in the eye."

Mahnaz Dar

Mahnaz Dar (mdar@mediasourceinc.com) is Reference and Professional Reading Editor for Library Journal and School Library Journal and can be found on Twitter @DibblyFresh.

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The author's new graphic novel, about a black student enrolling in a predominantly white private school, tells powerful truths about racism and alienation with humor and heart. Photo by Hollis King Scores of authors have written about being the new kid at school, but few have done it as effectively, or as sensitively, as Jerry Craft.

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The Companion Book to New Kid

New York Times bestselling author Jerry Craft is back with the newest adventures of Jordan, Drew, Liam, and all the characters that fans first met in New Kid , winner of the Newbery Award and the Coretta Scott King Author Award! In this full-color contemporary graphic novel, the gang from Riverdale Academy Day is heading to Paris, for an international education like you've never seen before ...

Jordan, Drew, Liam, Maury, and their friends from Riverdale Academy Day School are heading out on a school trip to Paris. As an aspiring artist himself, Jordan can't wait to see all the amazing art in the famous City of Lights.

But when their trusted faculty guides are replaced at the last minute, the school trip takes an unexpected-and hilarious-turn. Especially when trying to find their way around a foreign city ends up being almost as tricky as navigating the same friendships, fears, and differences that they struggle with at home.

Will Jordan and his friends embrace being exposed to a new language, unfamiliar food, and a different culture? Or will they all end up feeling like the "new kid"?

The Companion Book to New Kid
New York Times bestselling author Jerry Craft returns with a companion book to New Kid, winner of the 2020 Newbery Medal, the Coretta Scott King Author Award, and the Kirkus Prize. This time, it's Jordan's friend Drew who takes center stage in another laugh-out-loud funny, powerful, and important story about being one of the few kids of color in a prestigious private school.
Eighth grader Drew Ellis is no stranger to the saying "You have to work twice as hard to be just as good." His grandmother has reminded him his entire life. But what if he works ten times as hard and still isn't afforded the same opportunities that his privileged classmates at the Riverdale Academy Day School take for granted?

To make matters worse, Drew begins to feel as if his good friend Liam might be one of those privileged kids. He wants to pretend like everything is fine, but it's hard not to withdraw, and even their mutual friend Jordan doesn't know how to keep the group together.

As the pressures mount, will Drew find a way to bridge the divide so he and his friends can truly accept each other? And most important, will he finally be able to accept himself?

New Kid, the first graphic novel to win the Newbery Medal, is now joined by Jerry Craft's powerful Class Act.

Perfect for fans of Raina Telgemeier and Gene Luen Yang, New Kid is a timely, honest novel about starting over at a new school where diversity is low and the struggle to fit in is real, from award-winning author-illustrator Jerry Craft.
Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade.

As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds-and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighborhood friends and staying true to himself?

Universal Pictures has acquired film rights to New Kid, with LeBron James' The Spring Hill Company on board to develop and produce. Craft will be an Executive Producer.

Winner of the 2020 Newbery Medal
Winner of the 2020 Coretta Scott King Book Awards Author Award
#1 New York Times Bestseller
Winner of the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Young Readers' Literature
Finalist for Audie Award - Middle Grade Book of the Year
San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller
NEIBA, NAIBA, MPIBA, NCIBA, SCIBA and PNBA Bestseller
Indie Bestseller for Early & Middle Grade Readers
One of Publishers Weekly's Best Middle Grade Books of 2019
New England Independent Booksellers Association Best Children's Book of 2019
New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association 2019 Book of the Year for Middle Readers
Top 10 Spring 2019 Indie Next List Pick
Amazon Best Book of the Month, Ages 9-12
2020 Eisner Award for Best Publication for Kids Nominee
2019 Harvey Award for Best Children's Book Nominee
One of Booklist's 2019 Top 10 Diverse Fiction for Youth
One of P ublishers Weekly's Most Anticipated Children's Books, Spring 2019
#1 Indie Comics & Graphic Works Bestseller
One of the Best Graphic Novels of 2019 - School Library Journal
One of the 5 Best Fiction Books of 2019 - Washington Post
One of the Best Graphic Novels of 2019 - Washington Post
2020 Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children - Honor Book
30 of the Most Influential Children's Books of All Time - Bookriot.com
One of the Best Books of the Year - Time.com
Best Books of 2019 - New York Public Library
Best Fiction for Older Readers of 2019 - Chicago Public Library
25 Best Children's Books of 2019 - New York Times
Best Multicultural Children's Books of 2019 - Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's Literature
The Best New Gift Books for Kids - Kirkus - Best Middle Grade Graphic Novels of 2019
100 Scope Notes Best Books of 2019
Shelf Awareness - Best Middle Grade Books of 2019
Today.com - Best Graphic Novels of 2019
2022 Pacific Northwest Library Association Young Reader's Choice
2022 Grand Canyon Reader Award (Arizona)
2022 Charlie May Simon Award (Arkansas)
2021 Nutmeg Book Award (Connecticut)
2020 Connecticut Book Awards (Connecticut)
Sunshine State Young Readers Award 2020-2021 (Florida)
2021 Nene Award (Hawaii)
2021 Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Award (Illinois)
2021 Young Hoosier Book Award (Indiana)
2020-2021 Iowa Children's Choice Award (Iowa)
2021-2022 Louisiana Readers' Choice Awards (Louisiana)
2021 Maine Student Book Award (Maine)
2020 - 2021 Great Lakes Great Books Award (Michigan)
2021 Minnesota Youth Reading Award (Minnesota)
2019 - 2020 Great Stone Face Children's Book Award (New Hampshire)
2022 North Carolina Children's Book Award (North Carolina)
2021 Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award (Pennsylvania)
2020-2021 Volunteer State Book Award (Tennessee)

Meet Connecticut-based children's book author and illustrator Jerry Craft. Mr. Craft explains how his identity as an African American man influences his work, and how he hopes young readers are affected by his books.

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Jerry Craft: Children's Book Author & Illustrator

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Welcome to the website of Jerry Craft, author and illustrator of 'New Kid' and Mama's Boyz. Read his bio, tour dates, and more.

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Clip of Jerry Craft talking about New Kid

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Clip of Jerry Craft talking about New Kid