Summary
Narrated by the graphic novel’s twelve-year-old protagonist, Jordan Banks, New Kid opens with an image of Jordan falling through space. He says he feels every day that he is falling without a parachute—a metaphor, which is something he learned about in English class. The scene moves to Jordan at home with his parents on the top floor of a three-story walkup building in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. While Jordan writes in his sketchbook, Jordan’s mother and father try to get him interested in the website of the new school he will be attending. Jordan wanted to go to an arts-focused school, but his mother, Ellice, is excited at the prospect of him attending Riverdale Academy Day School, the best school in New York state. Jordan’s father, Chuck, points out that the photos of white students show little ethnic diversity. When asked, Jordan shows his dad what he’s been sketching: a spread of children running screaming from monstrous textbooks, rulers, and calculators. He tells Jordan not to show his mother, who just then returns to the room with a camera to snap a photo of Jordan’s first day of school.
The doorbell rings and Jordan goes down to meet the “guide” who will show him around his new school. Jordan’s dad tells Jordan not to let anyone talk down to him, and to shake the guide’s dad’s hand with a firm grip and eye contact. Jordan digresses to explain in his sketchbook that his father’s rules for “one of the most important rituals on earth” is to only use the right hand, to look the other person in the eye, and that the firmer the grip, the more the person will respect you. Standing on the Banks’s stoop, Bill Landers, Liam the guide’s father, shouts down to his son to stay in their fancy SUV and lock the door. An elderly Black woman sweeping the sidewalk looks up with a disapproving expression at Bill, who is white and wears a blazer and khakis. The strength of Jordan’s and Chuck’s handshakes throws Bill off balance.
On the way to the car, Jordan says hi to Miss Neal, the elderly woman sweeping the street. An arrow points to her saying, “The Neighborhood Watch.” The Landers’s license plate says RAD MEN. Inside, Liam is snoring asleep. Three young men walk by outside and greet Miss Neal and Chuck, who they refer to as "coach." He reminds them they have a game on Saturday. The boys walk past while joking about owning a car as nice as the SUV one day. Meanwhile, Jordan ducks below the window and then sighs in relief when he confirms the boys didn’t see him. Bill tells Chuck he’ll have Jordan back by four. Chuck admits the new school thing is stressful. Bill reassures him that when Jordan “gets out in a few years” Chuck will see he made “the right move.” Under his breath, Chuck comments to Miss Neal, who looks askance at the car, that Jordan isn’t being arrested.
On the drive to school, Jordan looks out at the first-day-of-school zombies—young people who look disoriented to have to shift from the freedom of summer to the routine of school. The greenery of Riverdale, a neighborhood in the Bronx, gradually replaces the city streets. At Riverdale Academy Day School—RAD for short—Jordan and Liam get out and join the zombies. Jordan is pleased to see a Black parent dropping someone off. However, the driver gets out and Jordan sees they aren’t a parent but a chauffeur opening the door for a white girl. Bill tells them Mr. Pierre will pick them up. When asked, Liam says he’s just a friend of the family.
Jordan marvels at the campus, which boasts green lawns, historic buildings, and a tennis court. Jordan comments to Liam that he and the other students wear a lot of pink. Liam says everyone mostly shops at Grapevine Groves, and corrects Jordan, saying the color is salmon, not pink. Jordan is happy to see a fellow Black student, a boy named Maury, who has gone to RAD since kindergarten. Three sophomore bullies make fun of Maury’s orange vest. Deandre, a Black bully, says it looks “gangsta.” Jordan overhears them call him Maury-O. Liam says it’s because it rhymes with Oreo, but he doesn’t understand the joke. Jordan does, however: it’s an insult meaning Black on the outside, white on the inside. The image shows M frowning, his head a giant Oreo cookie.
Liam reassures Jordan that most of the kids there are pretty cool. Just then, Andy Peterson walks over. He is white and wears salmon shorts and a pale green shirt with a pink tie. He comments on Jordan’s smaller height, then asks what sport he plays and “what are you, anyway?” Jordan doesn’t know how to answer, and Andy skips past the question, telling Jordan he is going to be starting quarterback and so knows everyone at RAD. He gives Jordan “the scoop,” warning him to keep away from gossips, dorks, show-offs, geeks, awkward kids, other new kids, and Liam—“the king of dorks.” Liam brushes Andy off and checks Jordan’s schedule. Andy says Jordan will like Mr. Garner for pre-algebra. Jordan asks why. Andy says, “‘Cause he’s… he’s… well… you’ll see.”
The bell rings for homeroom in Ms. Rawle’s class. A Black student walks in and introduces himself to Ms. Rawle. Jordan looks at him hopefully. Andy is angry that there’s another Andrew. The new student politely says he goes by Drew anyway. Everyone sits. When Drew notices Jordan looking at him, he turns, but Jordan turns away, confusing Drew. During introductions, a girl named Alexandra talks through Mr. Hunny Bunny, a rabbit hand puppet. This makes the others uncomfortable, but she doesn’t seem to notice or care. Jordan wants the day to end as he sits through homeroom, gets lost navigating the large campus to find his classes, and feels lost and alone in class. An image shows him as a tiny figure in a massive chair around a table of regular-sized students.
Analysis
The opening scene of New Kid establishes the graphic novel’s premise: Jordan Banks is reluctant to start seventh grade at an expensive private school in a wealthy, mostly white area north of his ethnically diverse upper-Manhattan neighborhood. Craft draws Jordan with hunched shoulders and a frown—closed-off body language that conveys his sense of dread and uncertainty. Craft contrasts this with Ellice’s upright, enthusiastic posture as she savors the details on the Riverdale Academy Day School website. While Jordan and Chuck worry over the school’s apparent lack of diversity, Ellice is excited to know her son is joining the elite.
The themes of white privilege, class difference, and racial microaggressions arise when Bill and Liam Landers arrive to pick up Jordan for his first day at RAD. Driving an expensive SUV and wearing business attire, Bill looks out of place on the steps of the Banks’s building. When he calls down to his son to stay in the car and lock the doors, the Banks’s neighbor Miss Neal—an elderly Black woman—overhears the comment, detecting the prejudice Bill reveals. While Bill may not think of himself as racist or classist, his instinct in an ethnically diverse urban area is to worry about someone trying to steal his car or cause harm to his son. His sense of danger looks absurd when juxtaposed with Miss Neal serenely sweeping the sidewalk.
Craft builds on the themes of class difference and white privilege with Jordan’s arrival at school. Having driven out of the familiar environment of Washington Heights into the leafy suburb of Riverdale, Jordan is unnerved to see no other people of color. Craft depicts Jordan’s relief at seeing a Black person pull up to drop off their child. However, in an instance of situational irony, the Black driver steps out in a chauffeur’s uniform and opens the door for a white girl whose parents are so wealthy they hire a driver to take her to school. Jordan doesn’t realize yet that the Landers also employ a Black driver, Mr. Pierre. When asked, Liam is embarrassed by his privilege and so tells Jordan that Mr. Pierre is “a family friend.”
In the halls, Jordan is dismayed to see that most students are either white or Asian. But he is delighted to spot Maury, another Black student in his year. Ironically though, Maury is teased by Deandre and his gang for being an “Oreo.” While Liam doesn’t understand the insult, Jordan gets that it is intended as a dig at Maury for being Black “on the outside” but acting like he is white.
The theme of racial microaggressions returns when Jordan meets Andy, an attention-seeking boy in his class, and Andy casually asks, “What are you, anyway?” Andy’s need to categorize Jordan's ethnicity reveals a prejudice against non-white people; it doesn't seem likely he would ask the same question of a white student. As a light-skinned Black person, Jordan has an ethnic ambiguity that prompts Andy to a microaggression that reminds Jordan of his marginalized status at RAD. In another provocative comment, Andy also suggests that Jordan will like his pre-algebra teacher simply because Mr. Garner is also Black. As Jordan and his father feared, a lack of diversity at RAD brings about a social enivornment that constantly reminds Jordan he is an outsider.
