I found “New Boy” to be an interesting story that address how difficult it is to be the new kid in school, especially as a minority in a school with mostly white children. Some moments that stood out to me as the story progresses is when Christian tells Joseph that “You are dead”. I found it interesting that, as a 9 year old boy, Joseph thinks of this moment in a practical way by thinking that he is clearly not dead, that Christian must mean that he is going to hurt Joseph. This is the moment we learn that Joseph has seen people dead men and boys. As the story continues, we learn that Joseph’s father was murdered by men which is never discussed further than that. This leaves his death up to interpretation, possibly the militia groups in Africa murdered his father. This would also explain why Joseph has had to move somewhere new. Throughout the story, we see Christian poke at Joseph, Joseph responds by grabbing his finger and the teacher does little to nothing. Later, Christian pushes Joseph during recess and Joseph, again, grabs his finger. Once they get back to class, the teacher confronts Joseph, Christian and Seth on the matter and none of them speak. I wonder if Joseph does this so that Christian and Seth will leave him alone or if Joseph is someone who has been taught to not speak up against others, that he prefers to handle it himself. Hazel tries to interject, but the teacher wants to hear none of it and Hazel walks away and calls the teacher a bitch. This leads to the teacher, once again, getting flustered and telling everyone to put their hands in the air which happens many times over the course of the story. The boys eventually walk back in together, this may mean that they are now friends, Joseph may not get bullied anymore for showing he won’t tell on them.