Customer Reviews

New Boy

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3 star:		(1)
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In New Boy, sixteen-year-old Rob Garrett leaves his segregated town in Virginia to become the first student of color at an elite Connecticut boarding school. While Rob encounters mainly ignorance and indifference toward the situation of African-Americans, he witnesses outright persecution as well when a classmate is mercilessly bullied for his Italian origins and acne. Another student, Gordie Burns, endures insults for his Jewish heritage. Rob's middle-class parents have shielded him from the humiliating effects of segregation, driving him everywhere so he wouldn't have to sit in the back of the bus. But times are changing. In March of that watershed academic year, Rob returns home for a long weekend to join his friends for a sit-in at the lunch counter of the local Woolworth's department store, which refuses to serve African-Americans. Based on the author information, the novel has a strong autobiographical element. While the characterization is sometimes thin, the novel is absorbing and ultimately very moving, vividly teaching young readers about the early Civil Rights era. Readers will have to look elsewhere for depictions of Jews' participation in the Civil Rights movement (such as Heeding the Call by Norman Finkelstein and Speed of Light by Sybil Rosen). But the novel compelling shows how prejudice came in many forms in the 1950s -- and it encourages readers to consider how this is still the case. Gordie Burns is wealthy and white, yet he and Rob seem to connect over their different experiences of prejudice, which have caused them to reject the narrow values of their WASP schoolmates. Rob Garrett learns that the Burns changed their last name to sound less Jewish; and when Gordie takes Rob to a jazz club in Harlem, he runs into his family's black chauffeur, who has become a follower of Malcolm X and calls Rob a "Jew-lover." Written in deceptively straightforward prose, this powerful novel does not shy away from showing historical hardship and complexity. For ages 12 to 18.

Reviewed by Phoebe Spanier

Set in the early 1960s, teenager Rob Garrett becomes the first black student to be admitted to Draper, a prestigious prep school in Connecticut. Although Rob, coming from Virginia, is no stranger to intense racism and segregation, he experiences few or no such problems at Draper.

He does, however, encounter anti-Semitism of the most viscious kind, and watches as events unfold that are eerily reminiscent of whites' treatment of blacks in the South. Against this background, Rob does a lot of soul-searching about civil rights and his place in bringing about social change and justice.

Houston deals very well with helping readers imagine what it was like to be young and black in that time and place. He frames history wonderfully, bringing in bits about jazz, New York City, black celebrities, and so on. Some of Houston's dialogue is a bit monologue-ish and not quite real, and there are a few cameo appearances that are rather unrealistic, though educatory.

Still, "New Boy" is an engaging story with plenty to discuss and mull over. Through it, readers will see segregation from multiple viewpoints, learn about the Civil Rights movement, and watch as Rob finds and defines himself in the midst of both personal and social change.

"It won't be easy," the narrator's cousin tells him referring to his attending a posh New England prep school, and it isn't. Rob, who has previously attended the public schools of his Southern hometown, struggles with issues of class and race at his new school. The odd thing, though, is that three quarters of these growth experiences take place OUT of school. The narrator is barely back at school before he's bouncing off again on vacation. So it is not really a story about the prep school life.

Most of the racism and classism Rob encounters and struggles with occurs away from the school. Through his friendship with a Jewish student and their experiences in Harlem, he becomes aware of Malcolm X and the civil rights movement. Eventually, he and his friends back home form a sit-in, however the action is over in just a few pages, while the reader is reasonably expecting it to be the climax of the book.

The narrator is smart and likeable, but the reader feels a distance; although the events that occur are by turns painful, exhilirating and disturbing, it is as if the author is holding us at arm's length.

Even if you've never wondered what it was like to move through life as a black american in the 1960s, Julian Houston's "New Boy" will open you up to those facts -- enough of them, anyway, to change your thinking on that subject. In this skillfully restrained story, which unfolds quickly and hangs onto you after you've put it down, Houston takes a simple idea (southern black boy at a 1960s New England prep school) and weaves an intricate quilt of characters and situations that places this story among the classics. Houston's even-keeled voice puts his readers at ease as we take in some unnerving details, particularly concerning our nation's bigoted south in the relatively near past. This is one of the best books I've read set inside a New England prep school and is probably the most finely-crafted book I've read on American racism from a black perspective. I recommend it strongly and hope for more from this terrific author.

It's the 1950s, the time when segregation was still taking place. Even though his parents, especially his mother, tried to protect him from the harshness and unfairness that was still present, Rob Garrett knew that his parents wouldn't be there to watch out for him forever. And his parents knew that, too.

That time came too quickly when Rob was awarded a scholarship to Draper, a prestigious private school in Connecticut, where he would begin his sophomore year. There he would be the only African American to attend -- and also the first. Without his parents there he knew he would have to fend for himself, to take this opportunity and make his parents proud.

While there, most of the boys were very welcoming; some were even wondering if he wanted to play on the sports teams, something he would never have been able to do if he had continued school back in Virginia. But Rob wanted to keep to himself so nothing troublesome would occur.

Back at home, though, a battle on segregation was taking place, and those affected by it were not going to stand around and let it happen. For instance, a local restaurant would not wait on African Americans, and many students were not happy about it, wanting to protest. Rob, passionate about making a difference, wanted to go along, too, but how can he when he is all the way in Connecticut trying to make the honor roll?

But there at the school, too, Rob witnesses segregation when an Italian student is made to be separated from the rest of his classmates, because some of them didn't want him around. And Rob's new friend is treated the same way, teased and made fun of because he is Jewish. Attending Draper, Rob knew that there would be problems -- he just never knew that it could happen to any ethnicity. Will Rob be able fight the segregation both at school and at home?

Beautifully written, NEW BOY is a powerful story that deals with an act that was once among us, which affected more people than most would have thought. The events and actions that evolve in the story realistically takes us back into that time. Rob is a strong character with passion who acts on what he believes, making the reader feel for him and respect him. And his friend, Gordie, lets us witness that not everyone had reformed to the idea of segregation. NEW BOY is a novel that will intrigue and satisfy any reader.

Reviewed by: Randstostipher "tallnlankyrn" Nguyen

This was a good book. It opened my eyes to things I never knew or thought about and I am now more knowledgeable.

this book made no impact on me. it was horribly written and did not give an okay description of anything. i hated reading it.