SIX KIDS. ONE MASCOT. WHO WINS?

Welcome to Rye, Virginia. In this suburb outside of Washington, DC, people work hard, kids go to school, and football is big on Friday nights. An eighth-grade English teacher assigns her class a debate project: Should the school mascot stay or change? Six middle schoolers get involved in an issue that already has the town turned upside down with everyone choosing sides and arguments getting ugly.

At the center of this story about human rights and Native sovereignty is a diverse group of kids. Callie Crossland (Cherokee new kid), Franklin Keys (Black football fan), Priya Bhatt (second-generation Indian-American and school reporter), Sean McEntire (working-class white kid), Tessa Ostergaard (white former homeschooler), and Luis Flores (El Salvadoran immigrant kid) go head-to-head with their community and wrestle with difficult questions about the importance of justice and the cost of change. 

This novel in verse by two award-winning authors brings a contemporary, ripped-from-the-headlines topic onto the page and asks, “What happens when a mascot is seen as racist, but not by everyone?” 

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