Yes, New Kid Is Banned!

Jordan Banks is a seventh-grader from Washington Heights who dreams of going to art school. Instead, his parents send him to Riverdale Academy Day School, a prestigious private school where he’s one of the few kids of color. Jordan navigates microaggressions, mistaken identities (the teachers keep mixing up the Black students), and the exhausting daily work of code-switching between his neighborhood and his school. Jerry Craft based the story on his own childhood experiences and illustrated it as a graphic novel. It won the 2020 Newbery Medal, the first graphic novel to do so.

In 2021, Katy ISD in Texas pulled Craft’s books after parents accused them of promoting critical race theory. One parent’s petition claimed the books would make “white children feel like oppressors.” Central Bucks School District in Pennsylvania and multiple districts in Florida and Tennessee have also challenged or restricted it. The charges always circle back to the same anxiety: a book that shows racism through a Black child’s eyes makes some adults uncomfortable.

Why You Should Read This

Craft drew something specific: the way a teacher pronounces your name wrong and doesn’t care enough to fix it. The way someone compliments you for being “so articulate.” The way your white classmate touches your hair without asking. None of these moments, taken alone, look like much. Stacked together, they form the daily weight that Jordan carries while trying to be a normal kid.

The graphic novel format makes these moments land harder. Craft draws Jordan’s fantasy sequences in vivid color: the superhero he wishes he could be, the art school he actually wants to attend. The contrast with the gray frustrations of Riverdale Academy tells the story before the words do. New Kid is funny, warm, and sneakily devastating. It won the highest award in children’s literature because it earned it. The people banning it are proving its point.