About this item
In the tumult of 1970s New York City, seventh graders are bussed from their neighborhood in Queens to integrate a new school in South Jamaica.Jamila Clarke. Josie Rivera. Francesca George. Three mixed-race girls, close friends whose immigrant parents worked hard to settle their families in a neighborhood with the best schools. The three girls are outsiders there, but they have each other. Now, at the start seventh grade, they are told they will be part of an experiment, taking a long bus ride to a brand-new school built to "mix up the black and white kids." Their parents don't want them to be experiments. Francesca's send her to a private school, leaving Jamila and Josie to take the bus ride without her.While Francesca is testing her limits, Josie and Jamila find themselves outsiders again at the new school. As the year goes on, the Spanish girls welcome Josie, while Jamila develops a tender friendship with a boy--but it's a relationship that can exist only at school.
About the Author
Marina Budhos is an author of award-winning fiction and nonfiction; her latest novel is The Long Ride, due out in September, 2019. She has published the novels Watched, which was a Walter Dean Myers Award Honor and Asian Pacific American Literature Honor; Tell Us We're Home, and Essex County YA Big Read; Ask Me No Questions, winner of the James Cook Teen Book Award and New York Public Library Notable and Best Book; The Professor of Light, House of Waiting; and Remix: Conversations with Immigrant Teenagers. With her husband Marc Aronson, she has published Eyes of the World: Robert Capa, Gerda Taro & The Invention of Modern Photography and Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom and Science, which was an LA Times Book Finalist. Her short stories, articles, essays, and book reviews have appeared in publications such as The Kenyon Review, The Nation, the Daily Beast, the Awl, Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. Budhos has given talks at universities in the U.S. and abroad, has been a Fulbright Scholar to India, and was awarded a Rona Jaffe Award for Women Writers and twice received a Fellowship from the New Jersey State Arts Council. Budhos is currently a professor of English at William Paterson University. Her website is www.marinabudhos.com.Did you know:*That The Long Ride takes place in the 1970s against the backdrop of desegregation in the schools--so relevant to today!* Watched was performed live with Theatre 167? For more info check out www.theatre167.org.* That Marina has published a number of short essays on everything from Donald Trump's assistant cheating in her writing seminar to memoir excerpts about growing up in Parkway Village, where Betty Friedan was inspired for "The Feminine Mystique? " Check it out: http://www.marinabudhos.com/books/short-works-2* That she and her husband Marc wrote a book out about photography and the Spanish Civil War and you can see many of the photos at a special link: https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/collections/eyes-of-the-world
