Her guilt, her sadness, her love, and her joy are all palpable and create a complex but wonderful character. Stone creates a character easy to sympathize with, especially the more we learn about her. Through the book’s progression, we learn more about Grandma’s past and the difficulty she encounters trying to face it.

Her vague and cryptic explanations about her past and the present keep you invested. Scoob, however, doesn’t know the purpose of the trip, and readers won’t either until closer to the book’s conclusion, making Grandma all the more interesting. This little old lady is chock full of nostalgia, and she recruits her grandson to take a trip down memory lane, one she tried to take years and years ago.

Doing so really allowed these two characters to flourish, and readers are able to learn more about the characters. One of the book’s other strongest fortes is only focusing on two characters: Scoob and Grandma. The subject matter is gracefully handled for its target age range. Throughout the entire book, she mentions how being married to a black man shaped her experiences. Early on in the road trip, Scoob and his grandmother experience it, and though Scoob is still young, his grandma doesn’t try to “protect” him from reality. (During a book event I attended for Stone, she referred to Clean Getaway as “ Dear Martin light.”) More importantly, she doesn’t sugarcoat. However, she’s able to include the same ideas in a way that’s easier to digest for the intended younger audience. Similar to her first novel, Dear Martin, Stone isn’t afraid to write about the difficult topic of racism. But Scoob also learns that his grandma’s history isn’t as straightforward as he may have thought. Along the way, Scoob learns a little about African-American and segregation history in the south. The book takes us on a journey with William “Scoob” Lamar and his (white) grandmother as they embark on a road trip through four different states in Grandma’s RV. Still fresh off the release of her latest YA novel Jackpot, Nic Stone is preparing to release her middle-grade debut novel Clean Getaway. Cover and Illustrations by Dawud Anyabwile.

Clean getaway book review