New Boy

Rob Garrett is fifteen and eager to get out from under the limits placed on him in his Virginia hometown, where segregation shapes nearly every part of daily life. In the late 1950s, a Black teenager there has few routes to a stronger future, so Rob's family makes an unexpected choice: they send him north to a boarding school in Connecticut, known for its teaching. Rob will be the first student of color the school has ever enrolled, and he heads off determined to make the most of the chance.

Once he arrives, Rob finds himself surrounded by the advantages and the loneliness that come with an elite private education. Back home, the civil rights movement is gaining momentum as ordinary men and women organize to demand an end to segregation. Rob's friends are moving toward direct action, and there is talk of a sit-in at a lunch counter that refuses to serve Black customers.

The novel follows Rob as he weighs his own place in that struggle and wonders whether a young man so far from home can still make a difference.