A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramée

Shayla’s certainly concerned about school, her friends, her crushes, sports, etc. How you have a hard time seeing outside of your own lens and then suddenly it’s like you can’t unsee anything anymore. Ramée’s is far more about the world outside of the self. Craft’s book is about the self and how it reacts in a world filled with microaggressions. The difference, however, was pretty clear to me from the get-go. Small ways, naturally, but sometimes something that seems small can make a huge difference.įor good or for ill, this book is already being compared to Jerry Craft’s New Kid, a comic that covers a lot of the same territory, if in a different format. And yeah, her sister Hana is all about protests and Black Lives Matter but that’s just a Hana thing, right? Yet when a public trial of a policeman comes up with a not guilty verdict and Shayla sees a protest firsthand, she starts thinking of ways that she can make a difference. She has her two best friends, her family, her good grades, etc. And until this year, that was fine for her. She pretty much keeps her head down and her lips zipped.

And if along the way the author is able to lead young readers down that same path, all the better. That moment when you cross over from childhood to something that isn’t quite adulthood, but is on the right path. Ramée has penned a young woman’s social justice awakening. There are better, more accurate, ways of putting those terms, even if they’re entirely true. I knew very little about it, but why not give it a go? The description of the book wasn’t doing it any favors, though, saying it would “capture your heart” and was “incredibly special”. When Lisa Moore Ramée’s A Good Kind of Trouble started raking in the starred professional reviews, I was intrigued.

I often do read it as part of my day-to-day job, but it isn’t something I’d instinctively select were it not for the recommendations of review journals and trusted fellow librarians. Because wouldn't you know it, a lot of the time you end up liking the things you try. But being a grown-up means trying different things all the time. A steady diet of fantasy, punctuated by the occasional mystery, and I’d be good to go. It’s funny, but as someone who reads a lot of children’s novels, my instinct is to revert back to my 12-year-old self. The bad thing about serving on a book committee is that it makes you read outside of your comfort zone. The good thing about serving on a book committee is that it helps you to read outside of your comfort zone.

A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramée