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 told him that his entire life. But lately he’s been thinking: Even if he works ten times as hard, he may never get the same opportunities that his privileged classmates at the prestigious Riverdale Academy Day School take for granted. Then, after a visit to his friend Liam’s house, Drew realizes that Liam is one of those privileged kids. He wants to pretend like everything is okay, but even his best friend, Jordan, can tell that something is up.
As the pressures build, and he starts to feel more isolated than ever, will Drew find a way to bridge the divide so he and his friends can truly accept each other? And more importantly, will he finally be able to accept himself?Full-color illustrations.
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Gr 4-8-Picking up where New Kid left off, this sequel finds Jordan starting another riotous, discomfiting year at Riverdale Academy Day School and pondering his future. For now, he has time to burn alongside best friends Drew and Liam. An initial sequence following the three boys' daily commutes encapsulates conflicts to come. Lighter-skinned Black, middle-class Jordan eats breakfast with his loving parents before his father drives him to school from Manhattan. Drew, who is also Black yet darker-skinned and working-class and whose doting grandmother is already at work when he leaves for school, catches two buses from Co-op City. Live-in staff attend to white, wealthy Liam while his parents, entrenched in cold war at opposite ends of the table, ignore their three children. Craft hereafter toggles among these points of view but focuses on Drew, who must work "twice as hard to go half as far." Once again, the author/illustrator's full-color panels captivate, drawing on comics' capacity for visual metaphor and hyperbole to deliver heavy payloads. He relies on Jordan's cartoons-rendered in simple, black-and-white linework-to pause the narrative and deliver incisive, bite-size observations on race, socioeconomic status, burgeoning individuality, and pubescent perils. (Lest the subject matter seem overwhelming, be it known that the book is hilarious-see, for instance, the interstitial title pages parodying popular graphic novel covers.) In time, the growing boys-unlike their school, which has no clue how to address institutional inequities and simmering tensions-initiate the painful but necessary work required to truly see and support one another. VERDICT Lightning strikes twice as Craft again produces a funny and appealing yet sensitive and nuanced middle grade tale of inequity and microaggressions.-Steven Thompson, Bound Brook Memorial P.L., NJ?(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.