New Kid

This year’s Newbery Award winner is the graphic novel New Kid, by Jerry Craft, about a 7th grader of color whose parents sent him to an elite school where almost all of the students are Caucasian. It is the first title in this genre to win the award. The novel also won the Coretta Scott King Award, given to an outstanding African American author or illustrator whose work fosters an appreciation for that culture. In an interview with School Library Journal, Craft said when his phone rang a second time on the morning of the awards, he thought the committee was calling back to tell him they made a mistake! He was thinking that they would say, “oh, no, we meant Jerry Pinkney, not you.” Instead he won a second award – Kudos to him.