New Kid
2019 graphic novel
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. During Jordan's freshman year at the prestigious school, he adjusts to a new learning environment, witnesses and experiences microaggressions, and makes friends with other students. The book is semi-autobiographical, as Craft based the book on his own private school experiences as well as those of his two sons. While he wishes the book to be appreciated by a wide range of readers, Craft particularly wants it to accurately reflect a present-day African American experience.
The book was well received by critics, sold well, and won the 2020 Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award and the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Young Readers' Literature. It was the first graphic novel to be awarded the Newbery Medal. The book's illustrations, using a unique number of graphical styles, helped to achieve a balance between the book's humorous and dramatic elements. Its critical and award successes were viewed at the time as an important achievement for graphic novels. A sequel titled Class Act was released on October 6, 2020.
The public source identifies “New Kid” as 2019 graphic novel. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around graphic and novel.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q85788534. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2019 and 2020.
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This entry incorporates text from “New Kid” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.