Orange Crate Art: A new book from Jerry Craft

Monday, May 15, 2023

A new book from Jerry Craft

[Top to bottom: Drew, Liam, Jordan. Click for a larger view.]

Jerry Craft, School Trip. New York: HarperCollins, 2023. 250 pp. $14.99.

        Drew: “You know, never really see kids like us
        traveling in books and movies.”

        Maury: “I wonder why that is.”

        Jordan: “Hmmm . . .”

As our story begins, middle-schooler Jordan Banks is still without his “big-boy stink.” If his classmates are to be believed, he smells of baby powder and sunshine. He’s still torn between staying on at Riverdale Academy Day School and switching to the High School of Music, Art, and Mime, to which he’s just been accepted. And now, with the gift of a new beret from his parents, he’s off to Paris, with eight other Riverdale kids — Alexandra (“girl Alex”), Andy, Ashley, Drew, Liam, Maury, Ramon, Samira — and two teachers, Messrs. Garner and Roche.

School Trip brings in a wealth of cultural material: French work and play (lengthy paid vacations, slow eating), French cuisine (croissants, escargot, ratatouille), French words in English (bon voyage, rendezvous ), Black Americans in Paris (Josephine Baker, James Baldwin, Ollie Harrington, Richard Wright). There are recurring comic bits about English idioms (“Stop and smell the roses”) and language quirks (Why a pair of pants? Why pork and beef, not pig and cow ?). And of course, there’s sightseeing, with visits to the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, and Sacré Couer, with child of wealth Maury leading the way.

But as Thomas Merton wrote, our real journey in life is interior. The kids’ room assignments lead to tension, the airing of grievances, truth-telling, apologies, and amends. The kids negotiate differences in economic status, race, and religion; ponder what it means to make a joke and what it means to be cruel; and come to understand the lasting pain of being bullied. All the kids are, as Jordan says, “new and improved kids” by the end of the trip — even obnoxious Andy.

Along the way, there’s a pre-Paris visit to a mall with a Banned Book Barn, a Jordan comic strip with a children's writer accused of having a “neo-faxo-harpo-marxo agenda” (“Lady, my book is about my puppy!” the writer replies), and a Riverdale Academy graphic-novel collection conspicuously devoid of two banned books that the librarian knows Jordan would like. As you may know, Jerry Craft’s New Kid and Class Act have been banned (really) for (supposedly) promulgating critical race theory. It’s Craft though who gets the last laugh here, as Jordan’s mom cautions her son about unrealistic art aspirations:

“Jordan Banks! You are a black kid who was born in Harlem and raised in Washington Heights . . .

“Do youreally think that one day you'll grow up to make some New York Times best-selling comic book that will win all the big literary awards, get translated into different languages, and then what? . . . get turned into a movie?”