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The Long Ride
In the tumult of 1970s New York City, seventh graders are bussed from their neighborhood in Queens to integrate a new school in South Jamaica.
Jamila Clarke. Josie Rivera. Francesca George. Three mixed-race girls, close friends whose immigrant parents worked hard to settle their families in a neighborhood with the best schools. The three girls are outsiders there, but they have each other.
Now, at the start seventh grade, they are told they will be part of an experiment, taking a long bus ride to a brand-new school built to mix up the black and white kids. Their parents don't want them to be experiments. Francesca's send her to a private school, leaving Jamila and Josie to take the bus ride without her.
While Francesca is testing her limits, Josie and Jamila find themselves outsiders again at the new school. As the year goes on, the Spanish girls welcome Josie, while Jamila develops a tender friendship with a boy--but it's a relationship that can exist only at school.
Jamila Clarke. Josie Rivera. Francesca George. Three mixed-race girls, close friends whose immigrant parents worked hard to settle their families in a neighborhood with the best schools. The three girls are outsiders there, but they have each other.
Now, at the start seventh grade, they are told they will be part of an experiment, taking a long bus ride to a brand-new school built to mix up the black and white kids. Their parents don't want them to be experiments. Francesca's send her to a private school, leaving Jamila and Josie to take the bus ride without her.
While Francesca is testing her limits, Josie and Jamila find themselves outsiders again at the new school. As the year goes on, the Spanish girls welcome Josie, while Jamila develops a tender friendship with a boy--but it's a relationship that can exist only at school.
208 pages, Library Binding
First published September 24, 2019
About the author
Marina Budhos
16 books70 followersMarina Budhos is an author of award-winning fiction and nonfiction. Her most recent novel is We Are All We Have, about Rania, a teenage asylum seeker, whose life is suddenly shattered and she goes on the road, in search of sanctuary, and family truths. Previously she published The Long Ride, Watched, which received an Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature YA Honor and a The Walter Award Honor. Her other novels include Tell Us We're Home, a 2017 Essex County YA Pick and Ask Me No Questions, recipient of a James Cook Teen Book Award, The Professor of Light, House of Waiting, and a nonfiction book, Remix: Conversations with Immigrant Teenagers. With her husband Marc Aronson, she co-authored Eyes of the World: Robert Capa & Gerda Taro & The Invention of Modern Photojournalism and Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom & Science, a 2010 Los Angeles Times Book Award Finalist. Budhos has been a Fulbright Scholar to India, received there Fellowships from the New Jersey Council on the Arts and is a professor emerita at William Paterson University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 82 reviews
November 15, 2019
This book for ages 10+ held my attention AND educated me. I enjoyed it immensely and learned from it....at age 50! Marina Budhos creates believable, likable characters with inner and outer conflict and she does it with complexity and compassion, with goodness and grace. Budhos tells a story (and truths!) about a period of time that left so many of us wondering, “What in the world will come of this bussing experiment?” and she lets us see into the minds of young people who find themselves feeling like outsiders while being moved by forces beyond their control.
I started reading this book thinking, “Why not read this one?” and came away thinking, “We all must read this one!” It ought to be included in school curriculums and in the #amreading stack on your nightstand. Readers and educators, take a look. You’ll be enriched by the experience.
I started reading this book thinking, “Why not read this one?” and came away thinking, “We all must read this one!” It ought to be included in school curriculums and in the #amreading stack on your nightstand. Readers and educators, take a look. You’ll be enriched by the experience.
October 5, 2019
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5. In 1970s New York, Jamila, Josie, and Francesca are inseparable. They are all mixed-race, and their families moved into a white neighborhood so their children could attend good schools. However, the city decides to integrate their schools, sending Jamila and Josie to South Jamaica, with Francesca’s parents opting for a private school. Over the course of the year the girls struggle as outsiders in their new school, and also learn harsh realities about prejudice. I flew through this audiobook and am excited to get this one into my students’ hands. Recommended for grades 6+.
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March 22, 2021Dnf
September 29, 2019
“You know, it’s a lot easier to be one side or the other. It’s harder to be in the middle. People don’t like the middle. That’s the bravest thing of all.” (178)
Jamila, Josie, and Francesca are mixed-race best friends living in Queens, NY, in 1971. Their plans for starting seventh grade together with their white neighbors at the local junior high school change when their neighborhood becomes part of a social experiment—integration. Francesca’s parents send her to a private school where she doesn’t fit, while Josie and Jamila take a long bus ride to a predominately black school in a neighborhood much rougher than theirs. However, they hope they may fit in better there, but Jamila is too light for the girls who call her “white,” and Josie is no longer in the advanced classes and worries about her future. The girls don’t fit into their new school neighborhood and their new boyfriends don’t fit into their neighborhood.
As the girls try to navigate seventh grade, boyfriends, teachers, classes, Jamila’s anger, and Josie’s shyness, narrator Jamila realizes, “If anyone had told me this was what being in junior high would be like: Your best friend is silent beside you. You’re skinny and knock-kneed and you get lost easily. You aren’t at the top of the Ferris Wheel. I’d have said: You can have it.” (60)
Their world outside the neighborhood also appears to have changed. “…I’m starting to notice that something bigger is going on in the city. Everyone is edgier, angry. You can feel it in the way people squint through the bus windows…. Meanwhile, kids are expected to glide across neighborhoods and make the world right. It’s supposed to be easy…. The ride is longer and rougher than anyone ever let on.” (115-116)
In this novel, author Marina Budhos shares some of her childhood experiences, the complexities of integration in ordinary neighborhoods, and the different plans—some that faltered or were unsuccessful. Adolescents today can experience history through this story, others can identify with schools that are still segregated, and, as the author states, for other readers, “…it is also about those of us who do not fit into neat racial categories” (Author’s Note, 197) and the “internal resegregation” of integrated schools.
The Long Ride is another book that will introduce yet more strong girls in literature (and well as a few interesting male characters) and generate important conversations among middle grade readers.
Jamila, Josie, and Francesca are mixed-race best friends living in Queens, NY, in 1971. Their plans for starting seventh grade together with their white neighbors at the local junior high school change when their neighborhood becomes part of a social experiment—integration. Francesca’s parents send her to a private school where she doesn’t fit, while Josie and Jamila take a long bus ride to a predominately black school in a neighborhood much rougher than theirs. However, they hope they may fit in better there, but Jamila is too light for the girls who call her “white,” and Josie is no longer in the advanced classes and worries about her future. The girls don’t fit into their new school neighborhood and their new boyfriends don’t fit into their neighborhood.
As the girls try to navigate seventh grade, boyfriends, teachers, classes, Jamila’s anger, and Josie’s shyness, narrator Jamila realizes, “If anyone had told me this was what being in junior high would be like: Your best friend is silent beside you. You’re skinny and knock-kneed and you get lost easily. You aren’t at the top of the Ferris Wheel. I’d have said: You can have it.” (60)
Their world outside the neighborhood also appears to have changed. “…I’m starting to notice that something bigger is going on in the city. Everyone is edgier, angry. You can feel it in the way people squint through the bus windows…. Meanwhile, kids are expected to glide across neighborhoods and make the world right. It’s supposed to be easy…. The ride is longer and rougher than anyone ever let on.” (115-116)
In this novel, author Marina Budhos shares some of her childhood experiences, the complexities of integration in ordinary neighborhoods, and the different plans—some that faltered or were unsuccessful. Adolescents today can experience history through this story, others can identify with schools that are still segregated, and, as the author states, for other readers, “…it is also about those of us who do not fit into neat racial categories” (Author’s Note, 197) and the “internal resegregation” of integrated schools.
The Long Ride is another book that will introduce yet more strong girls in literature (and well as a few interesting male characters) and generate important conversations among middle grade readers.
November 14, 2021
Important background for the Nice White Parents podcast. New York is trying to integrate its schools fifteen years after Brown, and Jamila and two best friends are part of an experimental busing scheme where white affluent students are bused to a poor, Black neighborhood, where the city has just built a brand new, state of the art junior high to bribe the white families into complying. Jamila and her friends are multi-racial and always stuck out in their almost entirely white old school, but their parents are still reluctant to send them to school in a bad neighborhood. Francesca's parents immediately enroll her in private school, but Jamila and Josie get on the bus and ride forty-five minutes every day to a school where daft ideas from the 1970s are beginning to infiltrate and all the girls have mandatory modern dance. There are also boys there, one of whom immediately decides he likes Josie and one who befriends in Jamila and they start talking on the phone every day. Budhos manages to smoosh all of junior high into a four hour audiobook, which is fine because junior high is terrible, but she really gets it all in there. Jamila and her best friends start growing apart, which, spoiler for actual junior high, isn't unusual. Francesca is boy crazy but that leads to a couple bad situations and she has to start hanging out with Jamila and Josie again because everyone at her private school is terrible. Meanwhile, Jamila and her boy who is a friend want to hang out and Jamila's parents have a conniption because walking around a bad neighborhood in broad daylight and meeting a kid from a bad neighborhood's grandma is too much for them to handle. The solution to integrating schools is to go back in time, kill Roosevelt and Hitler, and never initiate redlining in the first place, huh? The boys visit Jamila and Josie in the white neighborhood and it goes badly and there's a study buddy club thing and a class election and an inspirational teacher and a girl is mean to Jamila but they become wellwishers and various other things happen. Budhos keeps it fast-paced even though nothing actually happens because it's junior high, but it works. Well done, Marina Budhos.
February 14, 2021
Wow.
I'm not sure why I didn't know about this book until this month but I am so happy that I dove into The Long Ride. Mostly because it seems pretty fitting for Black History Month to dive into a book set in the 1970's when segregation was starting to happen in schools. Plus it's in New York where my family is from so it was interesting to see what was going to happen to Jamila, Josie and Francesca throughout this book.
Now these three girls are best friends. They are all mixed-race and they live in a nice white neighborhood. At first, people weren't really nice to them and some neighbors were being harassed or harassing. Yet, their families still lived there and everyone else on their street has now accepted it and played nice or they moved away.
Right when they are all about to start their new life in a new middle school, which is kind of far away, Francesca's parents decide to send her to private school instead. So Jamila and Josie head off to South Jamaica and their lives change soon after. Just like all kids, these three start to drift apart. They are still friends but they are out making new friends and are in different classes and such.
They also deal with a ton of prejudice. It was insane. Just by reading the history books we know that the people dealt with so much prejudice back then. Heck, they are still dealing with it now. So I wasn't completely shocked by it happening but these girls were in Middle School. Freaking Middle School.
Other than that, I really liked Jamila throughout the book. She kept my eyes open from start to finish. She doesn't understand why people see her as white, when she isn't. Then there's so much conflict as well. Honestly, I loved that I came across this book and dove into it's pages. Everything was written beautifully and I couldn't put it down.
Definitely recommend this to everyone.
I'm not sure why I didn't know about this book until this month but I am so happy that I dove into The Long Ride. Mostly because it seems pretty fitting for Black History Month to dive into a book set in the 1970's when segregation was starting to happen in schools. Plus it's in New York where my family is from so it was interesting to see what was going to happen to Jamila, Josie and Francesca throughout this book.
Now these three girls are best friends. They are all mixed-race and they live in a nice white neighborhood. At first, people weren't really nice to them and some neighbors were being harassed or harassing. Yet, their families still lived there and everyone else on their street has now accepted it and played nice or they moved away.
Right when they are all about to start their new life in a new middle school, which is kind of far away, Francesca's parents decide to send her to private school instead. So Jamila and Josie head off to South Jamaica and their lives change soon after. Just like all kids, these three start to drift apart. They are still friends but they are out making new friends and are in different classes and such.
They also deal with a ton of prejudice. It was insane. Just by reading the history books we know that the people dealt with so much prejudice back then. Heck, they are still dealing with it now. So I wasn't completely shocked by it happening but these girls were in Middle School. Freaking Middle School.
Other than that, I really liked Jamila throughout the book. She kept my eyes open from start to finish. She doesn't understand why people see her as white, when she isn't. Then there's so much conflict as well. Honestly, I loved that I came across this book and dove into it's pages. Everything was written beautifully and I couldn't put it down.
Definitely recommend this to everyone.
June 7, 2019
Copy received from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
While The Long Ride had a cool historical setting and an interesting premise, this book just didn't click for me.
I liked that this middle-grade novel was set in 1970's Queens and that it was about young, mixed girls who take the "long ride" to a school where they are supposed to feel able to fit in more - something that actually happened at this time. Segregation was illegal by the 70's in the US, but schoolchildren of color, like our three protagonists still faced major problems in school at the hands of their white classmates. These issues were portrayed in a realistic way, and the means by which the main character, Jamila, reacted to racism that was aimed at her was believable - she was immature at times, but she's only a seventh-grader in the story, anyways.
I was expecting to get a message out of The Long Ride, or at least be able to think deeply about something after finishing it, but that didn't happen. We all know that middle-grade books can and do make you think about life, and I wish The Long Ride was one of those. It seemed a little shallow to me because the plot didn't dive into anything much deeper than "Girl is sad and mad about going to a new school." The Long Ride was average, which is sad because it has the potential to be a lot better.
Also, I wasn't a fan of the romance between Jamila and John. It was played as a "forbidden romance," and I'm not exactly sure why that was necessary.
While The Long Ride had a cool historical setting and an interesting premise, this book just didn't click for me.
I liked that this middle-grade novel was set in 1970's Queens and that it was about young, mixed girls who take the "long ride" to a school where they are supposed to feel able to fit in more - something that actually happened at this time. Segregation was illegal by the 70's in the US, but schoolchildren of color, like our three protagonists still faced major problems in school at the hands of their white classmates. These issues were portrayed in a realistic way, and the means by which the main character, Jamila, reacted to racism that was aimed at her was believable - she was immature at times, but she's only a seventh-grader in the story, anyways.
I was expecting to get a message out of The Long Ride, or at least be able to think deeply about something after finishing it, but that didn't happen. We all know that middle-grade books can and do make you think about life, and I wish The Long Ride was one of those. It seemed a little shallow to me because the plot didn't dive into anything much deeper than "Girl is sad and mad about going to a new school." The Long Ride was average, which is sad because it has the potential to be a lot better.
Also, I wasn't a fan of the romance between Jamila and John. It was played as a "forbidden romance," and I'm not exactly sure why that was necessary.
March 6, 2020
4.5 Stars
Such an amazing book. So much of this book hit home for me. I rarely see mixed-race characters in books, let alone in contemporaries, and because of that I rarely see my own experiences in media. The Long Ride gets it in one, and really shows the challenges of being mixed race in a time/area where it's not seen as normal. It's wonderfully written and a must-read for adults and young readers alike.
Such an amazing book. So much of this book hit home for me. I rarely see mixed-race characters in books, let alone in contemporaries, and because of that I rarely see my own experiences in media. The Long Ride gets it in one, and really shows the challenges of being mixed race in a time/area where it's not seen as normal. It's wonderfully written and a must-read for adults and young readers alike.
December 8, 2020
spodziewałam się, że będzie to coś głębszego i dającego do myślenia, ale nic bardziej mylnego. nawet przyjemnie się czytało, ale nic poza tym. szczególnie relacja romantyczna między Jamilą a Johnem była w moim odczuciu niepotrzebna.
February 4, 2020
I really liked this book because I could relate to this book.
January 11, 2020
hmmm really strong 3.5
July 2, 2020
The Long Ride by Marina Budhos, 200 pages. Wendy Lamb Books (Penguin Random House), 2019. $17.
Language: G (0 swears 0 'f'); Mature Content: PG; Violence: PG.
BUYING ADVISORY: MS - ADVISABLE
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
It's 1971, and 12yo friends Jamila, Josie, and Francesca are starting 7th grade at the new integrated middle school in a black neighborhood - a long bus ride away. Francesca's parents are sending her to a private school instead, so Jamila and Josie will have to make the best of it without her. They've been attending a school where the population is mostly white, so this will be a change for these mixed race girls - they will probably be outsiders here, too.
Jamila sparks the interest of a boy, right away, and his friend Darren likes Josie, so there's a good amount of middle school drama, (including a teacher taking Jamila's journal and reading it out loud!) I liked that the girls had no obvious racial connection, and in a time where civil rights were such a focus, I liked that it was hard to pigeon hole them. A nice read that may encourage the reader to look for more information about the subject. The romance was sweet and the friendships felt real.
Lisa Librarian
https://kissthebook.blogspot.com/2020...
Language: G (0 swears 0 'f'); Mature Content: PG; Violence: PG.
BUYING ADVISORY: MS - ADVISABLE
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
It's 1971, and 12yo friends Jamila, Josie, and Francesca are starting 7th grade at the new integrated middle school in a black neighborhood - a long bus ride away. Francesca's parents are sending her to a private school instead, so Jamila and Josie will have to make the best of it without her. They've been attending a school where the population is mostly white, so this will be a change for these mixed race girls - they will probably be outsiders here, too.
Jamila sparks the interest of a boy, right away, and his friend Darren likes Josie, so there's a good amount of middle school drama, (including a teacher taking Jamila's journal and reading it out loud!) I liked that the girls had no obvious racial connection, and in a time where civil rights were such a focus, I liked that it was hard to pigeon hole them. A nice read that may encourage the reader to look for more information about the subject. The romance was sweet and the friendships felt real.
Lisa Librarian
https://kissthebook.blogspot.com/2020...
October 14, 2020
Living in a mostly-white neighborhood in New York City in 1971, Jamila and her best friends Josie and Francesca, all of whom are biracial, have always been close friends. Then the city tries an "experiment" in which the girls are bussed an hour away to attend 7th grade in a black neighborhood, and their relationships begin to shift. Instead of fitting in, Josie and Jamila just feel more different than ever, and Francesca's family sends her to a private school instead. Jamila starts to make some questionable choices as she tries to balance her old and new friends.
December 30, 2019
Absolutely incredible! Recommended for all readers! Story centers on three young women of color, just on the cusp of young womanhood. The three have been friends for a long while: Francesca is has a parent who is Latinx and one who is white British, Jamila (the narrator) has one parent who is white and one who immigrated from Barbados and is Black, Josie has a Black mother from Jamaica and a Latinx father from Puerto Rico.
While they have always reveled in their shared mixedness, fissures emerge with the fallout and day to day of the new policy of integrated schools through busing. They way the three women are treated is very very different, and Jamila struggles with this and with maintaining old friendships and building new ones, as well as with dating.
This book deals with issues of race, class, and gender, and looks at a very specific time and place, the late sixties and early seventies in Queens, New York City, but through the eyes of family life. The narrator is also really good!
Def check it out!
While they have always reveled in their shared mixedness, fissures emerge with the fallout and day to day of the new policy of integrated schools through busing. They way the three women are treated is very very different, and Jamila struggles with this and with maintaining old friendships and building new ones, as well as with dating.
This book deals with issues of race, class, and gender, and looks at a very specific time and place, the late sixties and early seventies in Queens, New York City, but through the eyes of family life. The narrator is also really good!
Def check it out!
June 24, 2023
It's crazy that this book takes place in the 1970's, because there were moments I'd been reading it as if it were taking place today. The three main characters are all mixed race and are thrust into an integrated school as a school social experiment. It made my heart hurt to see these girls feel like they had to prove themselves - black enough, Latinx enough, white enough. As much as the world is changing - both my husband and I's families were completely loving and accepting of our relationship - there are still pockets of ignorance and, to be frank, assholery. I do worry about what our children, who will be mixed, will go through. I hope that they never feel that they have to prove themselves, or feel that there are two competing halves of themselves.
November 2, 2019
I thought this book was both very relatable in being about middle school life and drama but also very informational about that time and place. A lot of students aren’t going to be familiar with the 1970s in NYC or know much about school desegregation or busing. This gives good insight into that and to what it was like to be multiracial during that time. I also appreciated how the friendship between the three girls was both resilient and realistic.
March 16, 2021
Three friends are moving towards adolescence. About to enter middle school they are counting on each other to help face all the expected changes. But it is unexpected changes that shape their seventh grade year. Like other cities, New York has instituted busing to address inequities and segregation. One friend’s parents make the decision to send her to private school. One friend is dropped from the advanced track and our narrator, Jamila finds herself isolated and having to make sense of adult racial politics that shape and warp virtually every aspect of her life. There are really strong characters- I particularly loved Jamila’s dad - and a lot more nuance than usually shows up in treatments of desegregation.
October 2, 2025
La pase muy bien con este libro, rápido, fácil de leer, personajes entrañables, historia, como siempre termino pensando que odio a los gringos pero eso es un _capitulo aparte_.
Espero que los niños gringos lean esto en el colegio.
Espero que los niños gringos lean esto en el colegio.
December 18, 2019
4.5 Beautiful upper middle grade historical fiction about family, race, heritage and finding your path in the world.
January 5, 2021
Piękna i wartościowa, szczególnie polecam dla osób które dopiero zaczynają czytać po angielsku.
December 28, 2022
Its not my personal fave
March 3, 2023
3.5⭐️
August 27, 2020
3.5*
I read this as a tutoring job so it was very broken up. I think I would’ve liked it more had I read it continuously. Because there are a lot of characters, it was a bit difficult to put myself back into the story every week after a few days of reading something else.
I read this as a tutoring job so it was very broken up. I think I would’ve liked it more had I read it continuously. Because there are a lot of characters, it was a bit difficult to put myself back into the story every week after a few days of reading something else.
December 9, 2019
This one would be a 3.5 for me. Most young readers will need a lot more historical context about the civil rights movement and integration in order to understand the social experiment of integration through busing being described here. I always enjoy this author's books and her willingness to tackle tough topics or explore parts of history that haven't been covered thoroughly in children's books. The story focuses on the academic year of 1971-1972 when Jamila, Josie, and Francesca are seventh graders. As part of the city's plans to integrate its public schools, the girls and several classmates are supposed to be bused from their Cedar Gardens neighborhood and predominantly-white school in Queens, New York all the way across the borough to a predominantly-black school. All three girls are from mixed-race families, which has brought them closer. They've never truly felt as though they fit in where they attend school, a point that might have benefited from further exploration, and hopeful that this will be a place where they will fit in. Although somewhat anxious about the move, they are determined to stick together and make it through the year. But Francesca parents decide that she must attend a private school, and Josie and Jamila have no classes together since Jamila is in a special program for advanced students while Josie hasn't made the cut. From the beginning, Jamila endures teasing and is singled out for harassment from some of the black girls since John, one of her black classmates, pays special attention to her. Jamila struggles to find her place and even gets in trouble a couple of times, horrifying her father because she has always been so compliant. During an outing with John and Darren, another classmate at her new school, Jamila is shocked to see the reactions of others to her friends as they are singled out as troublemakers simply because of the color of their skins. It isn't easy, but eventually, Jamila does figure out where she fits and takes on a leadership role. But the experiment ends when school closes for the summer, and Jamila will be returning to her neighborhood school. The book raises quite a few issues about the effectiveness of integration and busing and the challenges of expecting youngsters to shoulder the weight of these sorts of social changes, an idea explored further in the note from the author. I appreciated how all three girls were so very different with Francesca being more worldly and boy-crazy, and Josie much more conservative. The author hints at some of the troubles and name-calling experience by Francesca in her own new school, something that I would have liked to have explored a little more deeply. I'm sure the author had good reasons for not delving too far in that direction, but it might have made her experiences and those of the other girls more relevant if there had been more about those. Still, the book covers new territory and offers much food for thought and discussion. The title, of course, derives from those bus trips across town that lasted over an hour each way, but also seems to hint at the long, long, long ride to freedom and acceptance taken by many citizens of this nation.
December 16, 2022
It really was a long ride
August 10, 2019
**I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**
While it felt genuinely well-intentioned, this book fell very flat for me.
Positives:
The main character’s voice was very authentic. I liked the concept of dealing with segregation and mixed-race kids, and I thought addressing school system issues and middle graders was a great idea.
.
Negatives:
I was confused by most the book. The plot really went nowhere; the book ends exactly where it starts, with the characters not having grown or changed at all. Scenes jump without scene breaks, characters appear and disappear without notice, and characters draw conclusions not supported by the text, making it a very difficult story to follow. Random interactions occur consistently that do nothing to move the storyline, and the story is full of random and pointless events. No conflict is overcome, it just fades away without resolution or growth.
The story was just incredibly weak, as much as I feel bad saying that, strongly lacking morals or themes. There was nothing inherently terrible per se about it, but it was just a really weak novel. Things were explained poorly or not at all; I’m still confused on the setting, and if not for a few—and I mean a few, like maybe three—lines about the girls being mixed race and segregration, I wouldn’t have even be able to tell this time period. The whole concept of switching schools was never fully explained; why they were an experiment, never really explained; just almost nothing was explained. Like the reader is just expected to understand, when in reality, we’re utterly lost. There are instances of misbehavior and references to sexual behavior, but no morality—again, the story strongly lacked in the moral and theme department.
Not recommended.
While it felt genuinely well-intentioned, this book fell very flat for me.
Positives:
The main character’s voice was very authentic. I liked the concept of dealing with segregation and mixed-race kids, and I thought addressing school system issues and middle graders was a great idea.
.
Negatives:
I was confused by most the book. The plot really went nowhere; the book ends exactly where it starts, with the characters not having grown or changed at all. Scenes jump without scene breaks, characters appear and disappear without notice, and characters draw conclusions not supported by the text, making it a very difficult story to follow. Random interactions occur consistently that do nothing to move the storyline, and the story is full of random and pointless events. No conflict is overcome, it just fades away without resolution or growth.
The story was just incredibly weak, as much as I feel bad saying that, strongly lacking morals or themes. There was nothing inherently terrible per se about it, but it was just a really weak novel. Things were explained poorly or not at all; I’m still confused on the setting, and if not for a few—and I mean a few, like maybe three—lines about the girls being mixed race and segregration, I wouldn’t have even be able to tell this time period. The whole concept of switching schools was never fully explained; why they were an experiment, never really explained; just almost nothing was explained. Like the reader is just expected to understand, when in reality, we’re utterly lost. There are instances of misbehavior and references to sexual behavior, but no morality—again, the story strongly lacked in the moral and theme department.
Not recommended.
March 5, 2020
Lately I've been noticing more middle aged or senior couples in interracial marriages than I have in the past, and I often wonder if they are later in life matches,or if these are some of the long-married couples who paved the way for families like my own. And then I've wondered what life has been like for them and their families, how they were received in their communities. I only had one good friend in childhood who had a white dad and a black mom, and my family moved away before we reached adolescence. So I don't know how she and her siblings navigated their teen years in the 1980s and '90s, and from my perspective as a white kid, I thought that city was pretty well-integrated. As an adult, I have been curious how different reality may have been from my perceptions.
I was immediately drawn to The Long Ride when I saw that it depicted the friendship of three young girls from mixed race or Black/Brown families in 1971 New York. Being the only kids who looked as they did in their neighborhood is an experience that had at time mirrored that of my own children 40+ years later. As our society increasingly becomes self-segregated, often due to white flight, many of the issues Jamila and her friends face in The Long Ride are still being faced by minority kids and the educational decisions their parents faced are still prevalent for families like ours today.
Of course, Jamila also worries about boys, maintaining friendships, puberty, jealousy among peers, and other fairly universal experiences. Budhos does an excellent job showing how race, class, and gender intersect with all of this, and Jamila and her friends are easy to root for.
I was immediately drawn to The Long Ride when I saw that it depicted the friendship of three young girls from mixed race or Black/Brown families in 1971 New York. Being the only kids who looked as they did in their neighborhood is an experience that had at time mirrored that of my own children 40+ years later. As our society increasingly becomes self-segregated, often due to white flight, many of the issues Jamila and her friends face in The Long Ride are still being faced by minority kids and the educational decisions their parents faced are still prevalent for families like ours today.
Of course, Jamila also worries about boys, maintaining friendships, puberty, jealousy among peers, and other fairly universal experiences. Budhos does an excellent job showing how race, class, and gender intersect with all of this, and Jamila and her friends are easy to root for.
February 26, 2020
3.5
A topic with so much potential exploring the dynamics and outcomes of a school busing program to tackle educational segregation. The concept is both historical and topical, however the story itself fell flat for me. With the 3 main characters’ cultures/ethnicities quickly explained in the first chapter I had trouble keeping track of them and the many secondary characters. For young readers to understand the racism and othering occurring, they need a deeper dive into negative experiences of the MCs. In that regard, much is glossed over that would have rounded out the story more: Vietnam War, interracial marriage, neighborhood & educational segregation, sexual violence, etc. Too much, and yet, not enough to make this a story that sticks with me or affects readers to prompt discussion and change.
A topic with so much potential exploring the dynamics and outcomes of a school busing program to tackle educational segregation. The concept is both historical and topical, however the story itself fell flat for me. With the 3 main characters’ cultures/ethnicities quickly explained in the first chapter I had trouble keeping track of them and the many secondary characters. For young readers to understand the racism and othering occurring, they need a deeper dive into negative experiences of the MCs. In that regard, much is glossed over that would have rounded out the story more: Vietnam War, interracial marriage, neighborhood & educational segregation, sexual violence, etc. Too much, and yet, not enough to make this a story that sticks with me or affects readers to prompt discussion and change.
March 21, 2021
The Long Ride by Marina Tamar Budhos is an exploration of what it means to mixed-race and American. This middle-grade novel zooms in on a school desegregation effort in 70’s Queens, New York. Yet, it’s not history-focused. Author Budhos also delves into navigating the early teens, dealing with first crushes, and maintaining friendships in the midst of changing circumstances.
If you enjoy middle-grade historical fiction and slice-of-life novels, this one may just be right for you.
Read my full review here.
If you enjoy middle-grade historical fiction and slice-of-life novels, this one may just be right for you.
Read my full review here.
February 13, 2019
* Review is of an advanced reader copy
A semi interesting novel about school integration and friendship. Set in New York City in 1971, The Long Ride does a good job of portraying the positive and negative effects of school integration to an audience most likely unfamiliar with the concept. Additionally, author Marina Tamar Budhos has accurately captured the changing dynamics many friendships face as tweens become teens and their interests and lifestyles began to veer in different directions.
A semi interesting novel about school integration and friendship. Set in New York City in 1971, The Long Ride does a good job of portraying the positive and negative effects of school integration to an audience most likely unfamiliar with the concept. Additionally, author Marina Tamar Budhos has accurately captured the changing dynamics many friendships face as tweens become teens and their interests and lifestyles began to veer in different directions.
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