Moonwalking
Punk rock-loving JJ Pankowski can’t seem to fit in at his new school in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, as one of the only white kids. Pierre Velez, a math and history geek by day and graffiti artist by night, is eager to follow in his idol, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s, footsteps. The boys stumble into an unlikely friendship, swapping notes on their love of music and art, which sees them through a difficult semester at school and at home. But a run-in with the cops threatens to unravel it all.
Moonwalking is a stunning exploration of class, cross-racial friendships, and two boys’ search for belonging in a city as tumultuous and beautiful as their hearts.
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A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection!
A CBC Books 2022 “summer pick” recommended by Bee Quammie.
A 2022 NYPL Best Book and one of Kirkus Reviews Top 100 Middle Grade Novels of 2022.
MOONWALKING won a 2022 Nerdy Book Club Award!
A 2023 Books for a Global Society award winner!
A touching story of race, class, and friendship, this story does not end with a neat bow but on a realistic note. VERDICT A recommended must-have for middle and high school collections looking to expand their upper middle-grade offerings.
– School Library Journal, starred
The coauthors’ equally strong contributions evocatively bring the characters and setting to life through visual poetry. The even pacing makes for an engrossing read, and the characters’ pain and promise will remain with readers. A stellar, hauntingly beautiful narrative.
– Kirkus Reviews, starred
In an authentic look at the racial divide that continues today, authors Elliott and Miller-Lachmann bring varying degrees of own-voices authenticity to the characterizations and emotions represented. Their multilayered exposure of a specific time in history will resonate with modern readers, who will see these racist acts echoed all too loudly in current events. This is not an easy read, but it’s tellingly effective and worth pondering and rereading.
– Booklist, starred
In a 1980s-set verse novel told in alternating voices, collaborators Elliott (the Dragons in a Bag series) and Miller-Lachmann (Rogue) write a tender, engrossing tribute to art and close interpersonal bonds that explores themes of neurodivergence, mental health, and institutional prejudice.
– Publishers Weekly, starred
…a thoughtfully structured and sensitively rendered verse novel set in early-1980s Brooklyn featuring two memorable protagonists.
– Horn Book, starred
The dual narrative, by award-winning author and poet Zetta Elliott and Lyn Miller-Lachmann, creates a unique staccato structure – each transition resets the mood. Moonwalking is a book that will demand keen attention from its readers. Its references to ’80s culture and political strife are acute and call on us to situate ourselves in a world both foreign and familiar. While JJ and Pie’s childhoods unfold 40 years in the past, their experience will ring true to modern readers, with explorations of immigration, racism, mental illness, and love – all topics that still resonate powerfully today. Racism is as real, divisions are as stark, no matter how freshly walked the protests or raw the throats that call for justice.