Common Sense Media Review
By Mary Eisenhart
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Intense, angry, poetic tale of interracial friendship.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 12+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
MOONWALKING opens in 1982 as Pierre, who goes by Pie, prepares to tag another building in Brooklyn, and JJ, along with his family, leaves their foreclosed home in Long Island and returns to his grandmother's Brooklyn basement. Pie is Puerto Rican, Black, brilliant, artistic, and angry. JJ is Polish American, nerdy, bullied, and also angry. They've both got plenty to be angry about, as Pie's father ditched his mom before Pie was born, his mom grapples with mental illness, his mentor was shot in the back, his Vietnam vet cousin died of an overdose, and junkies are just part of the landscape his beloved kid sister has to navigate. JJ was bullied in his old school, expects to be bullied in his new school, His embittered father tends to hit him first and ask questions later, and his parents are shunning his teen sister for being in a lesbian relationship. Pie finds solace and meaning in graffiti art, JJ in punk rock, and when they meet in middle school, there's the glimmer of a friendship. Whether it can get past the meanness, prejudice, misunderstanding, and racism of the world they're in remains to be seen.
Is It Any Good?
Zetta Elliott and Lyn Miller-Lachmann's angry, relatable dual-narrative verse tale finds two battered kids in 1982 trying navigate a life that frequently makes no sense. Set in the early days of hip-hop, punk rock, and graffiti art, Moonwalking brings its middle-school protagonists together from different worlds, bonding warily over art. There's a constant barrage of violence (murdered friends and drug overdoses in the past, parents who think nothing of smacking their kids around), racism, and general helplessness in the face of overwhelming forces, and also the occasional inspiring moment of getting past it. There's also quite a lot about artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and early punk group The Clash, whose leader Joe Strummer's survival advice is a mantra for one of the characters:
"Joe Strummer said
you don't need talent
you don't need skill
all you need is a loud voice
an electric guitar
three chords
and a story."
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the historic and cultural events seen in Moonwalking. What impact did things like the air traffic controllers' strike, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the birth of hip-hop have on our lives today?
Leader of the 1980s Solidarity movement and later president of Poland Lech Walesa is a hero to JJ. Why did he feel inspired by the European political figure who fought for for workers' rights and social change?
In the afterword, co-author Zetta Elliott says, "After everything that happened in 2020, I couldn't write a conventional tale of interracial friendship. Happy endings are comforting, but I wanted my poems to provoke rather than placate." How did the George Floyd's death and the protests that followed affect her storytelling?
Book Details
- Authors :
- Genre : Historical Fiction
- Topics : Arts , Friendship , History , School ( Middle School )
- Character Strengths : Integrity , Perseverance
- Book type : Fiction
- Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Publication date : April 12, 2022
- Publisher's recommended age(s) : 10 - 14
- Number of pages : 224
- Available on : Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, Apple Books, Kindle
- Last updated : September 29, 2025
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