Everywhere You Don't Belong by Gabriel Bump

After working at the newspaper one day, Claude returns home to find Janice sitting on his bed. Simone is upset because she thinks that they are being defined by their race. Once at school, Claude joins the school newspaper, where the demanding editor, Connie Stove, immediately assigns him and the other black writer, Simone, to a project on diversity. Despite Grandma and Paul’s protestations, Claude leaves for Missouri. When Grandma and Paul ask Claude why he would ever want to leave, he responds that he does not belong in Chicago, but Grandma tells him that he does not belong anywhere. Janice decides not to follow him, telling Grandma that she wants to work in the service industry. Janice’s father, Jimmy, dies in the violence, and her mother, Annette, moves away to escape the grief.Ĭlaude joins the school newspaper, and decides to try college in Missouri. An angry crowd, led by the leader of the Redbelters, Big Columbus, starts a riot, and violence ensues on the part of both the police and the gang. While they are watching a football game, they learn that the police killed a black child nearby. At school, Claude meets a new friend named Janice, whose parents come to his house to socialize with Grandma and Paul.

The Redbelters, a gang in the neighborhood that deals drugs and causes trouble, tries to recruit Claude and his classmates at school, much to Grandma’s chagrin. Both Claude and Paul admire Jonah for his basketball skills, to the point that Paul begins to attribute any positive event to his influence. A boy named Jonah, who is a talented basketball player, moves in down the street. Paul loses his lover, who he calls Teeth, to suicide, prompting Claude’s school to send a guidance counselor for support. Claude changes schools frequently, making and losing friends as he does so. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2020.Ĭlaude’s story begins on the South Shore of Chicago, where he lives with his grandmother and her friend Paul after being abandoned by his parents.

The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Bump, Gabriel.

Everywhere You Don't Belong by Gabriel Bump