12-year-old Jordan Banks is a black boy who lives in
Washington Heights. Jordan loves art and makes cartoons about his life. His dream is to go to art school. However, his mother makes him go to Riverdale Academy Day (RAD) School, which she calls "one of the best schools in the state". However, RAD is not a very diverse school, having only a few black students. During his first day at Riverdale, Jordan is overwhelmed. He is helped by Liam Landers, a fellow student assigned to be Jordan's guide, and whose family has attended RAD (Riverdale Academy Day) for 3 generations. The two become friends. Jordan meets a variety of other students at the school, including Drew Ellis, who is one of the few African American students at his school; Andy Peterson, a jock who is disliked by many of his fellow students; and Alexandra, who always wears a
sock puppet on her hand. Jordan has some difficulties adjusting to RAD. These include sitting at the wrong table at lunch and not knowing how to act when a friend from the neighborhood sees him with Liam. Further challenges occur when his homeroom teacher, Ms. Rawle, discusses students on financial aid and calls Drew by the name of DeAndre. Jordan discovers that this kind of misnaming happens to other black students and faculty at the school, even a black teacher who has been at the school for fourteen years. Things start to slowly improve for Jordan. Forced to pick a team sport to play, Jordan chooses soccer and struggles with the rules and the cold, and scores an accidental goal in his first game. He also can have honest conversations with Drew about what it's like to be one of the few African Americans at RAD and become friends with him. His friendship with Liam also deepens after he goes to his house and they play video games. Liam gives him a pair of pink shorts that everyone at RAD wears for Christmas. After a discussion with his grandfather, Jordan successfully mixes both his school friends through video games. However, after Jordan corrects his neighborhood friends' grammar they give him the nickname "Private School". Jordan's life continued to be ups and downs for Jordan at school academically and socially. At first, Jordan dislikes his art teacher because she is teaching
modern art, though later he comes to understand that modern art is not that bad and that his teacher can paint normal art too. While waiting to be picked up one day, Jordan learns that Alexandra wears a sock puppet because she does not want anyone to see the burns on her hand, burns that she sustained preventing her younger brother from being scalded by a pot of boiling water. However, the burns were not severe; through a clever ruse, Jordan divulged the details of Alexandra's burn, which led to her greater acceptance among her peers. After ongoing tension between Drew and Andy, starting from when Drew beat Andy for a position on the football team, Andy dares Drew to join the baseball team, which he does, and ends up being benched all season because he does not know how to play baseball. When Drew and Andy get into an argument in the cafeteria, Andy slips on an apple and falls, but Ms. Rawle initially accuses Drew of pushing him. However, Jordan and several other classmates stick up for Drew, stopping him from being sent to the headmaster. As the school year draws to a close, Jordan's modern art illustration is picked for the cover of the yearbook. Drew, Liam, and Jordan have become good friends and on the last day of school Jordan even wears the pair of pink shorts that Liam gave him at Christmas. Jordan spreads the info about the hand burn to Alexandra's friends. As a result, Alexandra tells him she was about to be mad at him for revealing the burn before realizing he had done this to help her. Drew remains unsure if he will return to RAD, almost having been suspended despite making the honor roll each semester. The book ends with Jordan with his neighborhood friends as they start their summer. == Background and release ==