SuitabookA Good Kind of Trouble
Lisa Moore Ramée
- Reading
- Before reading, explain that the story discusses real-world racial injustice and protest without assuming the reader’s response. During or afterwards, pause over Shayla’s choices, distinguish disagreement from danger, and let questions remain open.
- Themes
- Courage and rules: Shayla wears a Black Lives Matter armband despite a school dress code and moves away from simply trying to avoid trouble. The story clearly treats the choice as important to Shayla’s development, but the extracts do not establish whether rule-breaking is broadly endorsed or what consequences ultimately follow.
- Race and belonging: Shayla’s multiracial friendship group changes as classmates form new social groups, while she questions what being Black means and whether she belongs. The book explores identity through Shayla’s uncertainty and relationships; it presents the issue as part of her experience rather than supplying a complete definition.
- Friendship and growing up: Shayla navigates changing friendships, school pressures, a crush and the transition from child to teenager, with involved parents and an older sister involved in the Black Lives Matter movement. Friendship change is presented alongside warmth and humour, but also strain and uncertainty; the supplied extracts do not establish whether relationships are fully repaired.
- Worth knowing
- The book includes discussion of police shootings of Black people, police brutality, a Black Lives Matter rally involving unrest, broken windows and arrests, and a brief frustrated use of “damn”. A school-dance kiss is described as non-romantic drama.