School Trip by Jerry Craft

School Trip, a companion novel to Newbery-winning New Kid, launches the Riverdale Academy students on a tour of Paris.

School Trip by Jerry Craft. Quill Tree Books (HarperCollins), 2023, 249 pages.

Reading Level: Middle School, ages 10-12

Recommended for: ages 10-14

Ah, Paris!

Jordan Banks has made some solid friends at Riverdale Academy Day School, but after two years he has a choice: stay at RAD or transfer to the New York High School of Music, Art, and Mime? Art is his passion, but Mom doubts he can make a living at it. But he has the summer to make a decision, and in the meantime there’s a golden opportunity to spend a week in Paris with his classmates. Best buds Liam and Drew are on the roster as well . . . but so is Andy, the king of snark, who is sometimes downright mean.

Hijinks ensue when three troublemakers hack into the school system and swap around the chaperone tickets so that teachers who planned on going to Alaska, Paris, or Wyoming will be headed for other destinations. So instead of Jordan’s French and art teachers, he’ll be seeing Paris with the soccer coach and the science teacher. Both of whom discover, once they try to buy dinner for the group, that their credit cards don’t work. That’s bad enough, but worse to come when Jordan’s friends arrange to room together, leaving him stuck with Andy.

Still . . . it’s Paris! An art-lover’s paradise

Learning to Get Along

School Trip doesn’t hang together as consistently as New Kid or Class Act, the previous books in this series, but it offers some insight into working out differences when you’re stuck with each other for an entire week. Social-climbing Ashley learns to relate to oddball Alexandria, loner Ramon finds a friend in rich-kid Maury, and perhaps most significantly, Andy and Drew have a meaningful conversation about race. The graphic-novel format allows clever symbolism from Jordan’s active imagination, and serious notes are surrounded by humor.

Overall Rating: 4

• Worldview/moral value: 3.5
• Artistic/literary value: 4.5

Read more about our ratings here.                 

Also at Redeemed Reader

• Review: We just recommended another graphic novel about kids touring Europe, A First Time for Everything.
• Reviews: Get your travel engine revving with The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide and How to Be a World Explorer: Your All-Terrain Travel Guide.

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