After a fight, Ebony “Eb” and De’Kari “Flow” are in the principal’s office learning of their 10-day suspension. The book is told in alternating voices; the reader follows the two as they are suspended. There were many things they did that reminded me of my own students. At one point, Eb gets her phone taken away. She opens up a Google Doc on her school account and starts chatting with her friends. My students do that as well because they aren’t allowed to have their phones in class. It sounds clever, but at my school, the teachers can see students’ screens. We learn so much when they chat like that.
As the book moves along, you learn a lot more about Eb and Flow’s homelife. Eb lives with her grandmother. She has to help out a lot by babysitting her nephew, and she spends a lot of time thinking about moving in with her father in Texas.
Flow lives with his mom, and his dad is in the military, but his uncle has a mechanic shop down the street, so he’s often there to help out. Everyone seems to think he got the nickname ‘Flow’ because he wants to be a rapper like his dad, but he likes it because, when he is in the water, he flows.
As the days go by, we are learning more and more about these two and also about how awful technology is. They are both seeing the video of their fight, and kids at school are talking about it over texts and social media. It seems like they are getting madder at each other as time passes. More people are getting involved as well. So many people have something to say about the situation.
I liked how this felt like it could happen. These kids are having issues in different aspects of their lives, and they are handling them like kids would. They are making decisions that others might not understand, and they don’t know how to explain how they are feeling to the adults in their lives. I think this is an excellent read for students to stop and think about what others are saying, and to just talk things over without everyone else causing more problems.
Five out of Five Magical Coffee Cups
Literary Coffee 