Books: Forthcoming Novel Highlights White Parents & Diverse Schools

Lucinda Rosenfeld's new novel, Class, is scheduled to come out in a few months, but we're already starting to hear about it this summer.

According to the Amazon blurb, the book focuses on "idealistic forty-something Karen Kipple" who sends her kid to an integrated Brooklyn school.

"But when a troubled student from a nearby housing project begins bullying children in Ruby's class, the distant social and economic issues Karen has always claimed to care about so passionately feel uncomfortably close to home."

Sounds interesting -- if also perhaps stereotypical. But perhaps that's the point. Anyway, can't wait to read it. 

Meantime, Rosenfeld is on a panel tonight at 7 with Nikole Hannah-Jones and Rebecca Carroll.

Crossed fingers they'll talk about the UWS parents who are trying to block school integration, along with the Brooklyn situation.

You can watch the livestream here.

Comments

[JT]

Sounds like an interesting book that raises important issues. IThanks for writing about it. Regarding UWS - please read up some more and avoid simplifying the issues. It's more about losing a beloved neighborhood school that parents of young children (working parents, disabled parents) can walk to.

[UWS Parent]

Looking forward to hearing an intresting discussion. Regarding the UWS comment - we are not trying to block integration. The DOE has proposed that students from the Amsterdam houses would come to PS 452 in Sept of 2017 and no one is objecting to that. What we do object to is losing our neighborhood school that we have worked hard to make it a success. We are zoned for our local school and by moving our school 16 blocks away, the DOE would be asking families to walk over 25 minutes (I did the walk with my kids) to get to school. We wouldn't get a place in our "new" zoned schools, PS 87 or PS 199 because these schools don't have available seats. Basically current PS 452 families would be collateral damage and would have to endure long walks to get to and from school and lose the community aspect that comes with belonging to the local school.