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.”
For Students
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 nobody's looking. Jordan's story is middle school — not the sanitized version, the real version. And it's funny. Craft is genuinely funny, even when the subject matter is hard.
For Teachers
One of the most teachable books in the middle-school canon. The graphic novel form requires students to practice visual literacy alongside textual literacy — analyzing panel composition, color, facial expression, and spatial relationships as meaningful elements of the text. The social-emotional content opens discussions that students need and often don't have access to. Short enough to read in a week, dense enough to sustain a full unit.
Why It Still Matters
Every student who has ever felt like a different person in different rooms will recognize Jordan. The code-switching isn't only about race — it's about class, about family, about the gap between who you are at home and who you're expected to be at school. The specific experience is Jordan's; the feeling is nearly universal. The book asks the question every middle schooler is asking: do I have to choose who I am?