Mascot

Written by Charles Waters and Traci Sorell

Narrated by Karen Chilton, Merissa Czyz, Kyla Garcia and 4 more

In Rye, Virginia, just outside Washington, DC, people work hard, kids go to school, and football is big on Friday nights. An eighth-grade English teacher creates an assignment for her class to debate whether Rye’s mascot should stay or change.

Now six middle schoolers get involved in the issue that already has the suburb turned upside down with everyone choosing sides and arguments getting ugly.

At the center of this story about human rights and Native sovereignty, there are six young people.

Callie, a Black Cherokee Nation citizen, is new to the town and school; Franklin loves football, wearing fresh kicks, and so far has resisted his parents’ desire for him to learn more about his Black heritage; Priya wants to be a journalist and has four grandparents all born in India;
Sean is a sixth-generation Rye student in an Irish family that often needs help from the food pantry; Tessa, who is white, was previously homeschooled and has grandparents who marched with MLK Jr.; Luis immigrated from El Salvador at seven and aspires to be a math teacher and coach.

Written from several points of view, this novel in verse asks, “What happens when a mascot is seen as racist, but not by everyone?”

This audiobook is narrated by Karen Chilton, Merissa Czyz, Kyla Garcia, Christopher Gebauer, Robb Moreira, Soneela Nankani, and Ruffin Prentiss.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9798892742740

Charles Waters

Charles Waters is a children's poet, author, anthologist and actor based in Georgia. His book Mascot (co-written with Traci Sorell) has received an American Indian Youth Literature Award Honor and a Jane Addams Children's Book Award Honor. His other books (co-written with Irene Latham) include: African Town (winner of the 2023 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction), Dictionary For A Better World: Poems, Quotes and Anecdotes from A—Z, Be A Bridge, and the Charlotte Huck Honor book Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes and Friendship. You can visit him at: www.charleswaterspoetry.com

Reviews for Mascot

[jennybeast · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This has a lot of great messages and huge feels. It's also a lot of points of view and feels very didactic to me. It starts with an 8th grade assignment, and reads like a school assignment, which is kind of a bummer, since the premise and message is wonderful.

[salsabrarian · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Callie is new to Rye Middle School. Being Black and Cherokee, she has a real problem with the school mascot being the Braves, and the cheers and tomahawk chops during the football and basketball games. In Callie's honors English class, Mrs. Williams assigns a presentation topic on the pros and cons of Native American mascots. Callie can't believe she has to argue the pros. The other kids in her class also have their stances on the Braves: Luis and Sean are proud to be Braves; Priya and Tessa are aware of the damaging impacts; and Franklin is on the verge of changing his position from pro to con. The tone gets pontifical but overall this is a timely work that explores discrimination vs. tradition through a diversity of perspectives.

[ewyatt_16 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novel in verse explores a middle school in the DC area with a mascot controversy. Callie, a Black Cherokee nation citizen, is a new student to the school and upset about the mascot (Braves), the way community perverts Native culture in their use of the mascot, and is spurned to take action. Six students from an 8th grade English class are given the assignment to explore the mascot and debate pro or con. A group in the class has strong opposition to the mascot and decide to take action for change. It shows the issue from varying prospectives (including their English teacher) from a range of backgrounds and perspectives. Lessons learned, friendships made and fractured, growth from all those involved.

[acargile-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Mascot is a 2024 Lone Star novel.

Mascot preaches at the reader. The messages are spot on and accurate, but it's very much in your face. Each character represents different societal issues, bringing in hot topics. There are two sections to the book: the fall semester and the spring semester.

The characters include the following:

Callie: a new student who is immediately offended by the Native American mascot and speaks up. She, herself, is a Cherokee Nation citizen. She loves her English teacher who begins the year with an assignment of who they are and then a theme writing. She writes about the offensiveness of the mascot.

Franklin: an African-American, who is sometimes accused of acting too white, loves football but doesn't have any ability to play. He loves supporting the football team. He listens to the facts about indigenous peoples and decides they are correct. Even though his father is angry with him, Franklin chooses to advocate for changing the mascot. His friends abandon him as a result.

Priya: a Indian-American who gets told to go back home even though she and her parents were born and raised in the United States. She immediately feels that the mascot is completely offensive. She believes people should fight for what is right and not back down. She joins the other students in seeking a new mascot. She only wanted to be on the newspaper and make good grades, but she ends up spending her 8th grade year covering sports (not what she wanted at all) for the newspaper and fighting for a huge change.

Sean: a low-socio-economic student who loves his family and believes the mascot is part of the tradition of the high school. They are honoring the Native Americans' bravery and and power. Sean is super smart and hopes to be a teacher one day. He works hard to help the family, working when he can. He's super polite, but he cannot see the others' point of view. He finds an adult business owner who is Native American who believes the mascot should not be changed, pulling him into the discussion as well.

Tessa: a new student who has always been home-schooled. She appalled by what she sees and speaks out very loudly. Most people tune her out because she doesn't realize that she's blind to her own privilege and doesn't really understand. She's passionate, but she forces her way to the front of the outrage, not realizing that's the situation is not about her. They need her to see her white privilege.

Luis: a hispanic who loves futbol (soccer) but learns to love American football because of the sheer joy, fun, and camaraderie of attending games.

After the theme assignment, Mrs. Williams has the students take sides and debate the pros and cons of mascots that represent groups of people. Ms. Williams is a black lesbian, which has no relevance and didn't even need to be mentioned. Her poems explain good writing and how to make arguments. She leads the students well and is a good teacher.

I didn't love the book because it was repetitive and was almost angry in tone. There's no character development--each character represents the "idea" of a culture even if the culture isn't present in the story. It's pretty much a one-sided debate. There's also a reference to "cancel culture." I can't imagine many kids being interested in this book. This mascot issue would resonate more where mascots have come under fire and have needed to be changed. I've always been with schools named after animals, which is what I'm most familiar. This book will have a very limited audience here.

[oldandnewbooksmell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When an eighth grade honors English teacher assigns her students a debate about their school’s mascot, they must decide if it should stay, or go. When some of the students end up getting really involved, the issue turns the DC suburb upside as everyone chooses sides.

This is a wonderful novel in verse that really showcases a diverse group of six students’ backgrounds and beliefs as they talk about the subject of their school’s mascot. With each student, we see them change and grow as they think about the mascot and what it means to them. Some change their opinion about it, while others keep what they thought in the beginning.

A lot of the reasoning why one of the kids didn’t want to change it had a lot to do with generational stuff (their parents also went to the same school and were also the mascot) and I think, as a kid, that’s all the reasoning you need to not change something. There’s more to it, of course, but I enjoyed that the novel did show so many different perspectives.

The changing of the names of sports teams and mascots have been in the news for many years. It is nice to see it written out in a way that middle schoolers would be able to understand it.

Though this aimed at middle grade, I believe those who are older would also get something out of it as well.