Class Act continues the story of the Riverdale Academy Day School gang, but emphasizes Drew’s experiences a bit more and it also starts to include other challenges of growing up, particularly physical and emotional/relationship maturity. It is now eight grade, so the group is in their second year together. In a lot of ways, there’s a lot more going on here in volume 2, both story and meaning-wise. In the previous volume that focuses on Jordan, Drew is a fellow student of color, but instead of being the observational one who tries to work out his feelings in his notebook (like Jordan), Drew is the one who gets angry and tries to stand up for himself. That same anger is definitely still a part of the story, but it’s also combined with Drew trying to work out how to relate and interact emotionally with his black neighbors from before he went to Riverdale, as well as his mixed group of friends at Riverdale, but especially, Liam who’s both wealthy and white.
A lot of the issues Drew faces are not directly addressed, so it’s up to the reader to notice not just what’s going wrong but also why. There’s a scene pretty early on when a girl touches Drew’s hair without asking because she’s curious about how soft it is. Jordan’s comic compares this situation to touching a pregnant person’s belly without asking permission, so the point is still indirect but still a little more direct than it might have been had this been New Kid. We also get to see the friends and Drew deal with Riverdale’s attempts at diversity education, which includes a student discussion group consisting mostly of the students of color, led by a white teacher (although there was one teacher or staffer of color who was expecting to be volun-told, and wasn’t; he seemed disappointed), a movie about the gritty struggles of people of color based on a book by a white woman (Drew and Jordan found this movie very cringe, but a lot of the white students were very moved and felt they now totally understand), and Drew, Jordan, and Jordan’s dad have a law enforcement encounter, so the experience is mostly demonstrated by Dad’s reactions in this case and it’s not directly explained, but again, if you know the general background of this kind of situation, you know what’s going on as the point about race.
The other big addition to Class Act is socio-economic equality. There’s a visit by a sister school that’s considerably less well off, and that goes about as well as you’d expect. To me, the points are valid but really get over-emphasized. The white teacher of the mostly diverse student visitors routinely explains how badly off her school is by mentioning how she has had to buy most of the classroom library herself, lack of facilities like teacher parking and cafeteria, lack of arts programs, sports areas like a gym and outdoor track, and so on. While the point is totally valid and needs to be made, it’s so directly made by the visiting students and their teacher that it feels overwrought, especially compared with the subtlety of some of the other illustrations of similar challenges. For example, when Liam invites Drew and Jordan over for dinner and his mom orders “good pizza” (meaning gourmet, gluten free, etc), and his friends find out his mom doesn’t work but that there’s a pool in the very large house with 4-5 people in the family, not counting the hired help. The help includes one Mr. Pierre who is from Haiti and works to send money back to his family, and he’s almost the father figure to Liam whose actual father is often away on business (a cause of tension in the household), and it is Mr. Pierre who helps Liam, Drew, and Jordan all start to bridge the gaps between their worlds. Liam meeting food with actual flavor when he comes over to Jordan’s (along with Mr. Pierre and Drew and Kirk, a neighbor friend of Jordan’s) and his appreciation of the view when Drew finally decides to invite him over to Drew’s place, show some of the progress that both boys are making emotionally. Friendship is hard, as Drew notes, as is the possibility of Ashley as a girlfriend; she’s clearly interested, but Drew’s not entirely sure about this idea. Jordan, meanwhile, is mostly concerned with his lack of teen stench, almost a running gag throughout the book.
There are so many more little things that could be said here (Alexandra has her moments, Andy’s Hulk experience, etc.), but that’s one of the cool things about Class Act, even if it gets a little too concerned with making sure certain points are visible. I kind of have to wonder how much a kid would get some of the subtler points if they don’t identify with Drew or Jordan or Liam, but you never know.