Swim Team

Swim Team by #1 New York Times bestselling author, Johnnie Christmas, is a graphic novel about a young girl who takes on a new home, new friends, and a daunting new sport. It has been the recipient of many awards, including the National Book Award Longlist, Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor, BCALA Literary Award Winner, Black-Eyed Susan Award, Maud Hart Lovelace Award, Yellowhammer Award, and Jane Addams Book Award Honor. Bree, the main character, reluctantly joins “Swim 101” after all other elective classes are full. From there, she must face her fears of the water as she also navigates new friends and some new not-so-friendly classmates. As we follow Bree on this journey, we learn about the historic segregation and oppression Black Americans faced as they fought for the right to swim in public pools and beaches and how spirit, determination, and community can be the missing puzzle-pieces to success. I’m a “newbie” when it comes to reading in the graphic novel format, but I really enjoyed how the illustrations (which were stunning, by the way) propelled the plot forward as much as the text. Swim Team would be a wonderful book for readers age 9-13. I would teach this in a fifth grade monolingual or linguistically blended classroom to do a genre study on graphic novels and the use of color and light in the illustrations to demonstrate mood of the story. It would also be a great fit for teaching theme, as there are several clear themes that students would resonate with in the text.