Ethan, Suspended

After getting in trouble at his previous school in suburban Blue Hills, Pennsylvania, thirteen-year-old Ethan Oppenheimer is sent to live with grandparents he hardly knows in urban Washington, D.C. Although he had lots of friends at his old school, Ethan finds it hard to fit in at Parker Junior High. The only white, Jewish student in a school of African Americans and Hispanics, he endures teasing and harassment and has no one to sit with in the lunchroom, even if his crazy grandparents didnt pack him weird old-people food in wrinkled plastic bags for his lunches.

But as the semester moves on, Ethan gets involved in jazz band and makes some new friends, learning a lot about prejudice and acceptance -- and about himself and where he really fits in the world.