New Kid
Jerry Craft (2019)
“A seventh-grader learns to survive a mostly-white private school without losing who he is — and draws his way through it.”
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New Kid
Jerry Craft (2019) · 256pages · Contemporary
Summary
Jordan Banks is a twelve-year-old Black kid from Washington Heights who loves drawing comics but gets sent to Riverdale Academy Day School — a prestigious, mostly-white private school — instead of the art school he actually wants to attend. Jordan spends the year navigating microaggressions, class differences, a teacher who can't learn his name, and the impossible pressure to be two different people in two different worlds. By the end, he finds a way to belong in both without erasing either.
Why It Matters
New Kid is the first graphic novel to win the Newbery Medal (2020) — one of the most prestigious awards in children's literature, whose selection committee has historically favored text-only prose. The award was a formal acknowledgment that visual storytelling is literature, and that the graphic ...
Themes & Motifs
Diction & Style
Register: Informal in voice, formally composed in image — everyday middle-school dialogue elevated by precise visual storytelling
Narrator: Jordan Banks: twelve years old, dry and observant, with the internal voice of someone who processes the world through...
Figurative Language: Low in text, very high in image
Historical Context
Contemporary America — post-2010 conversations about race, class, and elite education: New Kid arrives in the middle of a national conversation about whether diversity without inclusion is enough — whether putting Black and brown students in elite spaces while leaving the power struc...
Key Characters
Talking Points
- Jordan's sketchbook is described as a place where he can 'say anything.' Why can't he say those things out loud? What does the book suggest about who gets to speak freely at RAD — and who doesn't?
- Mr. Roche calls Jordan 'Drew' repeatedly, even after Jordan corrects him. Mr. Roche is not trying to be cruel. Does his intention matter? Why or why not?
- Compare Jordan's two worlds — Washington Heights and RAD — using Craft's visual choices (panel size, color, border style). What is Craft saying through the images that he doesn't say in words?
- Drew and Jordan both navigate RAD as Black students, but they navigate it differently. Whose approach does the book favor? Is one approach right?
- Jordan's mother attended a school like RAD when she was young. How does this shape the choice she makes for Jordan? Do you think she's right?
Notable Quotes
“I just want to go to an art school. But instead, I'm going to Riverdale Academy Day School.”
“When I draw, I can be anyone. Say anything. Go anywhere.”
“Hey! You must be Maury!”
Why Read This
Because it tells the truth about what school actually feels like — the exhaustion of performing yourself differently in different rooms, the small moments that add up to something big, the gap between the face you show and the face you make when n...