A review by kingarooski
New Boy by Tracy Chevalier

4.0

A modern retelling of Shakespeare's Othello, New Boy focuses on Osei Kokote, the son of a Ghanaian diplomat and a group of all-white grade 6 students. The story is set in 1970s and the shock of a black boy joining an all-white school soon sends ripples throughout. Jealousy, prejudice and fear soon bubble to the surface, not just in the children but in the teaches, as well. The tension in this book builds and, at times, I found it too much and had to switch off the book and listen to something else. But the author's ability to build this tension so perfectly is admirable as it had the expected effect of making me feel uncomfortable and I closed my eyes, even though I was listening to the book and would have preferred to close my years.

I do feel that the morning and afternoon recess was far too long and too much was crammed into a single day. I've never known lunchtime at school to last as long as it did in this book! I am not sure that Ian, a 6th-grade student, would have the ability to understand his own behaviour and motivation as well as he did. But, I feel that Tracy Chevalier captures the deceit and manipulation well and delivers a powerful story overall.