Why We Fly by Kimberly Jones & Gilly Segal; Naperville, Illinois: Sourcebooks (c) 2021; 301 pages; $17.99
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — This Young Adult novel focuses on the friendship between Eleanor (Leni) Greenberg, who is Jewish, and Chanel (Nelly) Irons, who is African-American. Although they are members of different religious and racial groups, the two have been fast friends since childhood. However, the friendship comes under stress during their senior year of high school when Leni is chosen as the team’s captain, even after being out most of the previous year with an injury, and Chanel, a natural leader of the team in the interim, has been passed over.
Inspired by the action of Cody Knight, a fictional football player modeled after the real world’s Colin Kaepernick, the cheerleading squad impetuously decides to take a knee during the playing of the National Anthem just prior to the kickoff of their high school’s opening football game. The idea wasn’t originally Leni’s nor Nelly’s, but they instantly agreed to it. Being cheerleaders with razzle dazzle routines, they decide team members should go to their knees in a falling domino sequence.
The reaction is divided. Some students love it. Representatives of the School Student Leadership Team, the Black Social Club, the Gay-Straight Alliance, the Jewish Student Union and the Girl’s volleyball team want to join in the following week’s protest. On the other hand the captain of the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) squad protests that such demonstrations are disrespectful and unpatriotic.
The news of the protest goes national. Pro and con statements fill the Internet. Numerous nasty tweets are aimed against the cheerleaders, along with some encouraging ones. And then there are some major consequences. The administration steps in, banning kneeling during the National Anthem. Leni’s boyfriend, the team’s talented quarterback, is pressured by his ambitious parents, to put distance between himself and Leni. They are hyper-focused on their son playing in the NFL some day. The school’s angry principal bans the cheerleading squad from being on the sidelines prior to kickoff, and, far worse, he suspends Nelly from school, but none of the other cheerleaders, who are all White.
How all this comes to be resolved I’ll leave to future readers of this book. As a side note, I should mention that marijuana vaping and premarital sex are dealt with in passing in this book.
Two of the adults who are most inspiring for the high schoolers are the quarterback’s aunt, who chairs the African-American Studies program at the nearby college, and the rabbi at the congregation where Leni had her bat mitzvah.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com