Language: PG-13 (67 swears 0 'f'); Mature Content: PG-13 (Subject matter. Smoking. Drinking); Violence: PG-13 (Bullying)
BUYING ADVISORY: MS, HS - OPTIONAL
APPEALS TO: SOME
17yo Gil Powell lives in Brooklyn, NY. He is interested in robotics but there is no robotics program at his school. There is a private school in Manhattan that has an intense robotics program. Gil advocates for himself and gets accepted to Augustin Prep school and receives a scholarship. Also, Gil is a martial arts expert and participates in a neighborhood martial arts studio with local friends. Gil is targeted by a fellow student and "forced" to display his martial arts skills. He gets in trouble and is placed on probation. Other students of color at APS are isolated and they form a club and demonstrate against the inequalities at the prep school. Gil turns to the book The Art of War to devise a plan to keep his placement at APS.
Gil is a likable character, and his work ethic is admirable. Some of the instances he has questionable ethics in his interpretation of what is allowable and not allowable. The angst between the neighborhood and friends and those at the prep school seem fairly typical. The students at the prep school work well together to create and devise plans to teach the prep school community about their racism from people and the institution. Gil is a second-generation Jamaican living in a Jamaican neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY. He lives with his grandmother, who is suffering from dementia, and his mother. His father is in Jamaica trying to secure legal status in the US.
Bryant Baird, Librarian
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