Twelve-year-old Shayla is new to junior high. Her elementary school didn’t have many black kids like her, but there are lots in junior high and they all seem to stick together. Shayla hangs out with Julia, a Chinese American, and Isabella who is Puerto Rican. The three, who call themselves the United Nations, have been best friends since the third grade, and Shayla expects them to stay best friends. But race seems to be getting in the way. Julia is spending more time with her group of Asian friends, and Shayla is getting hassled for not eating lunch with the black students and for being less than friendly to black kids in her classes on on the track team that she joined. All Shayla wants to do is keep her two best friends and stay out of trouble. Trouble makes her hands itch.

A police officer is acquitted of killing an unarmed Black man and everyone in her citry of Los Angeles takes sides. Shayla’s parents are socially conscious, and her older sister is involved in the Black Lives Matter movement. When Shayla decides to support Black Lives Matter by wearing a black armband to school, she learns that you can’t always avoid confrontation and some things are worth the trouble.

Shayla enters a mystifying maze of social order and friendship in the seventh grade and comes out stronger and wiser. A Good Kind of Trouble tackles complex issues of race, injustice, belonging, empathy, and perspective. Learn more about the author at: www.lisamooreramee.com.