New Kid on the Block

Life must have been pretty tough for Junior after he arrived at Reardan. Besides the fact that his entire tribe essentially hated him, he's the only Indian at the entire school. Heck, from as far as we can tell, he's the only non-Caucasian at the school. He describes how lonely and ostracized he feels for the first couple weeks until the incident with Penelope being bulimic, after which people begin to befriend him. While that may have turned out great for Junior, many new kids aren't so lucky. I've never been the new kid at any school other than the first day of elementary and middle school like everyone else; I've gone to Johnston since kindergarten. Reading this book has really opened my eyes to just how many kids seem to always be by themselves, like the ones who eat alone at lunch. I imagine it's pretty miserable, especially this late into schooling to have to transfer schools to places where people are already established into cliques and have well-defined social groups. The sad thing is that very few people are willing to just reach out to those people, too, myself included. While we all have set groups of friends, many new kids suffer, and I'm not sure that their situations will necessarily improve with time.