Along the way, Scoob learns about the Green Book and how it was once used to help keep Black travelers safe. They’re sort of off the grid and William’s Dad grows more worried by the hour but G’ma is on a mission, crossing multiple state lines to see it through to the end. In Clean Getaway the reader gets to buckle up as a passenger aboard G’ma’s RV with her grandson William “Scoob-a-Doob” Lamar, as the two venture off on an impromptu road trip with a grip of money, a treasure box, and a whole lot of family secrets. She has a way of telling a story that pulls the reader in deep, to the point where they are fully engrossed as the journey unfolds making the reader an intimate friend living out the experience alongside the characters.

One that I spoke of and shared widely because, for me, Justyce McAllister was just like my son and through its pages, Dear Martin echoed the cries of my heart for social justice and change. Nic Stone is a New York Times Best Selling Author whose work I first experienced when I read her debut YA novel, Dear Martin in 2017. (Jan.Note: This review can also be found at the Middle Grade Book Village. Agent: Rena Rossner, the Deborah Harris Agency. A heartwarming, family-centered adventure that will leave readers guessing until the end. This dual tour through pre– and post–civil rights movement America confronts the country’s difficult past, including how fraught with danger travel was to the average black citizen, while raising questions about what progress should look like.

As they make their way toward Juarez, Mexico, Scoob begins to suspect that G’ma might be up to something more suspicious than recreating a vacation and becomes torn between contacting another adult and protecting his grandmother. He mostly goes to escape a punishment from his father, but as the two make their way through the South, Scoob learns more about the grandfather whom he never met, the interracialĬouple’s 1963 road trip, which G’ma aims to complete, and the ways in which the world has changed and remained the same.

Part history lesson, part road trip, this notable middle grade debut by Stone ( Jackpot) stars William “Scoob” Lamar, a biracial, black-presenting 12-year-old, as he heads off on a road trip with his beloved grandmother, G’ma, who is white.

Clean Getaway by Nic Stone