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''Class Act'' is a 2020 graphic novel by Jerry Craft, published by
Quill Tree Books HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Publishing#Book publishing, Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette (publisher), Hachette, and Macmillan Publishers, Macmillan. The com ...
/HarperAlley, imprints of
HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News ...
. It is a sequel to ''
New Kid ''New Kid ''is a 2019 graphic novel by Jerry Craft. The novel tells the story of a 12-year-old African American boy named Jordan Banks who experiences culture shock when he enrolls at a private school. Taking place over Jordan's freshman year ...
''. The story is about an eighth grade
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
student at Riverdale Academy Day School, Drew Ellis. The series talks about how Jordan feels not welcomed no matter how hard the school tries. The series includes sketches done in pencil, termed by the author to be "intermissions".


Plot Summary

Following the events a few months after the events of New Kid, Jordan Banks, a young African American boy, is feeling discomfort about going to eighth grade at RAD also known as Riverdale Academy Day School, a prestigious school. He has a dream to go to art school and become an artist, but his mother still wants him to go to RAD and enrolled him there last year. At school, Jordan meets up with his friends Drew and Liam. However, at school, Drew becomes annoyed when several other students attempt to touch his new hairstyle, and to add the group's problems, they meet their old enemy from last year, Andy Peterson. Drew attempts to make up with Andy, but Andy just walks off in a huff. After meeting other friends at school, Jordan and his friends go home. A few weeks later, Andy comes to Jordan's group of friends, suggesting that the group dress up as the Avengers for Halloween. When the others don't play along, Andy gets angry and walks off. On the day of Halloween, Andy is dismayed to discover that hardly any of his classmates have dressed as the Avengers. Things come to a head when Andy appears at school with his skin dyed green, as a result of a prank. Andy is then teased about it the entire day. At the end of the day, one of the teachers, Mr. Roche, asks that Drew help serve as a student ambassador for visiting students from another school, this school having mainly African American students. Things go from bad to worse when Mr. Roche is unable to pronounce the visiting students' names, and when the students are appalled at how bad their school is compared to RAD. Jordan and Drew go to Liam's house for Thanksgiving Break, but Liam feels uncomfortable when Drew questions him about his privileged lifestyle. Tension builds up between Drew and Liam, since Drew finds it hard to be with Liam, since he thinks that Liam has privileges that he could never get. Jordan finds it hard to be able to keep their friend group together. When Drew goes home, Liam's driver, Mr Pierre reminds Drew that he shouldn't let Liam's privilege change how he treats Liam. As the year finishes out, the school is called to an assembly, where they watch a movie about urban life. Drew and Jordan do not enjoy the movie, as it paints an inaccurate picture of how most African Americans live, and random students give Drew and other African American students gifts and money after the movie. Mr. Roche also attempts to start a diversity group, but the group doesn't end up accomplishing much. Drew finally tells Liam how he feels about him, and the two are able to be friends again and make up. The school also finally starts to make real efforts to make it more diverse. Jordan, Drew and Liam are finally able to be themselves around each other, and respect their differences.


Characters

* Jordan Banks - The main character in the first novel "New Kid" * Drew Ellis - He is the best friend of Jordan and the main character, and protagonist of Class Act. * Liam Landers - A friend of Jordan and a
White American White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
. His family has a lot of money. Who also has a personal driver * Andy Peterson - A white American who wears a
MAGA hat "Make America Great Again" or MAGA is an American political slogan popularized by Donald Trump in his successful 2016 presidential campaign. The slogan became a pop culture phenomenon, seeing widespread use and spawning numerous variants i ...
, he was previously the quarterback of the
American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...
team but lost this role. Since Drew took it, Andy feels hostility towards Drew. Dave Kim of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' states that the MAGA Hat to him is "perhaps a bit heavy-handed".


Reception

'' Kirkus Reviews'' stated that this is "A well-Crafted, visually rich, truth-telling tale for our troubled times that affirms the eternal importance of friends."


References

2020 American novels American graphic novels Quill Tree Books books {{2020s-graphic-novel-stub