Class Act by Jerry Craft

A follow up to Craft's Newbery and Coretta Scott King award winning New Kid, Class Act focuses on Drew Ellis, one of Jordan Bank's Black friends at Riverdale Academy. A new semester has started, and now Drew and Jordan are seventh graders. Drew, like Jordan, attends the mostly white prestigious school on scholarship. He lives in a low-income co-op apartment with his working grandmother. His grandmother has instilled a strong work ethic in Drew, teaching him that he has to work twice as hard to go half as far. While an outstanding student and athlete, Drew has difficulty juggling between Andy, his racist arch enemy, Ashley, a white girl who has a mad crush on him, Liam, his uber-rich white friend, Jordan, who is lighter skinned, and the guys from his own neighborhood.

Craft deftly interweaves middle school life and drama, with racism, and assumptions about race, poverty, and wealth. Drew is jealous of Liam for what he has, paying no attention to how unhappy Liam is. Liam is jealous of Drew for the support from his grandmother and the community around him. Both boys will grow to appreciate each other. Craft's deft artwork adds brevity and humor. Chapter titles and section artwork are analogies of current popular YA books. Periodic sections drawn in black and white, remove the reader from the story to teach about relationships and racism in symbolic and subtle ways.

An excellent follow up to New Kid that confronts the reader with racism and race relations in a non-didactic, humorous way.

Mark's Book Picks Score: 4

Reading Level: 2.8 • Interest Level: 4-7 • AR Points: 2.0 • Lexile Level: NA • Publisher: Harper Collins • Pages: 249 • Copyright: 2019 • ISBN: 978-0-06-288550-0 • Available in Perma-Bound Binding