Jerry Craft's New Kid is a graphic novel about a Black seventh grader who struggles to adjust to the upscale, mostly white private school in which his mother has enrolled him. New Kid made headlines in 2021 when a Texas school district pulled the book from classes after white parents erroneously complained that it promoted Critical Race Theory, which Craft says he had never heard of. The district undid the ban after reviewing the book's content.
Aimed at middle-grade readers, New Kid depicts protagonist Jordan Banks feeling out of place as a Black seventh grader on financial aid at Riverdale Academy Day School (RAD), a private school full of affluent children. Although Jordan is frustrated when white teachers often call him and other Black students by each other's names, he is grateful to develop new friendships with Liam Landers, a very wealthy white boy who also likes to play Xbox, and Drew, a Black honor-roll student who lives with his grandmother in the Bronx. When Jordan's homeroom teacher finds his sketchbook full of comics about the microaggressions he encounters at RAD, she confronts him about his "anger" and shames him for embracing his "difference." Jordan challenges her by asking whether she would ever teach at a school in his Washington Heights neighborhood, where she would stand out as different. When the school year ends, Jordan reconnects with his neighborhood friends, who affectionately tease him for being a private school student who doesn't know the difference between a metaphor and a simile.
Exploring themes of privilege, race, assimilation, creativity, and bonding, New Kid was the first graphic novel to win the Newbery Medal. New Kid also won the Coretta Scott King Author Award and the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers’ Literature. In 2020, Craft published a sequel, Class Act, which focuses on how class and skin-color differences between Drew, Liam, and Jordan lead to different treatment by RAD teachers.
