New Kid recap

Jordan Banks wants to attend art school, but his parents enroll him at Riverdale Academy Day School, an elite private school where he is one of relatively few Black students. He records the daily strain in cartoons: teachers confuse students of color, wealth shapes friendships, and classmates move through the school under very different assumptions. Jordan befriends Liam, a welcoming white student from a rich family, and Drew, a Black classmate who understands the burden of being judged unfairly. He tries to keep his school life separate from his Washington Heights friends and often stays quiet to avoid becoming a target. Over the year, friendship tensions and repeated bias make that strategy impossible. Jordan finally speaks up when Drew is blamed after being provoked by Andy, a student whose behavior adults frequently excuse. By year's end, Jordan has connected his different social worlds, accepted that his art can help him tell the truth, and chosen to return to Riverdale without giving up his own identity or ambitions.

Jordan Banks is a seventh grader in Washington Heights whose real passion is drawing. He hopes to attend an art school, but his mother enrolls him at Riverdale Academy Day School, a prestigious private school far from home. Jordan worries about the commute, the unfamiliar culture, and being one of very few Black students in his grade. On his first day, Liam Landers is assigned to guide him and offers a genuine welcome. Jordan also meets Drew Ellis, another Black student, and Andy Peterson, a classmate whose aggressive jokes are routinely tolerated. Jordan quickly sees that teachers and students make assumptions based on race and money. Rather than openly challenge each awkward moment, he watches, adapts, and turns what he notices into cartoons in his private sketchbook.

Jordan settles into the mechanics of Riverdale while remaining uneasy about belonging there. He moves each day between Washington Heights and a school where many classmates take wealth and privilege for granted. His friendship with Liam grows, but seeing Liam's home makes the distance between their lives impossible to ignore. Drew becomes another important friend because he recognizes many of the same slights Jordan notices. Teachers repeatedly mishandle the identities of students of color, including calling Drew by the wrong name, while Andy's behavior is often treated as harmless. Jordan's drawings give him a place to express reactions he does not yet feel safe saying aloud. At home, his family encourages him to keep trying, though Jordan still wishes the school valued the kind of art he wants to make.

As the year continues, Jordan's friendships deepen but become more complicated. He likes Liam and Drew, yet he sometimes treats his school friends and neighborhood friends as parts of separate lives, afraid that each group will misunderstand the other. Liam's wealth can make Jordan self-conscious, while Liam has his own reasons for feeling isolated. Drew is increasingly frustrated by the different standards teachers apply to him and Andy. Jordan also learns that classmates who appear strange or privileged from a distance may be carrying difficulties he has not seen. These discoveries challenge the quick judgments operating throughout the school, including some of Jordan's own. Although he remains cautious, he starts sharing more of himself and recognizes that silence does not protect everyone equally.

The tensions Jordan has observed come to a head when Andy provokes Drew and the adults are ready to blame Drew. Jordan stops trying to remain invisible and gives an honest account of what happened, supporting his friend despite the risk of drawing attention to himself. The choice marks a change in how he handles Riverdale: he can recognize the school's unfairness without surrendering his own voice. His cartoons, once kept private as a safe outlet, also help others see how he experiences school. By the end of seventh grade, Jordan has built real friendships with Drew and Liam and begins allowing his school and neighborhood worlds to meet. He has not abandoned his desire to be an artist, and Riverdale has not become free of prejudice or class divisions. Even so, Jordan chooses to return for the next school year, now more willing to define his place rather than let the school define it for him.

Near the end of the school year, a confrontation involving Andy and Drew forces Jordan to choose between remaining safely unnoticed and telling the truth about the unfair treatment he has watched. He speaks up, accepting that fitting in should not require silence. His private cartoons also become less of a hiding place and more of a way to understand and communicate his experiences. By the last day, Jordan has genuine friendships with both Drew and Liam, even though the differences between their lives have not disappeared. He brings friends from his school and neighborhood worlds into contact instead of keeping those parts of himself separate. Jordan still wants art to be central to his future, but he decides to return to Riverdale for eighth grade. He ends the year no longer merely enduring the school: he has begun to claim a place there on his own terms.