MOONWALKING

Alternating perspectives explore an interracial friendship forged amid family turmoil and societal injustice and tension in pre-gentrification Brooklyn.

After Joseph John “JJ” Pankowski’s father is blacklisted for participating in the 1981 air traffic controllers’ strike, his family moves from Long Island to his father’s childhood home in Brooklyn, where his Polish grandmother still lives. They leave behind the Catholic school where JJ was bullied as well as his older sister—rarely mentioned, for reasons that JJ, who is cued as autistic, doesn’t yet understand. One of the few White students at his new middle school, JJ observes: “Things / That / Make / No / Sense. // One out of twenty kids / in the school / but one out of four kids / in honors class.” There he meets Pierre “Pie” Velez, a Puerto Rican and Congolese “genius kid" and graffiti artist who struggles to care for his mother, who has mental illness, and younger half sister in the predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood of Los Sures. The boys become friends via their shared love of art: For JJ, it’s music, especially the Clash, and for Pie, it’s artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. An encounter with the police highlights the differences between them, threatening their friendship. 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.