CAGED BIRDS

By Fredrick Leach

Jordan Lucas is an affluent, Black, high school senior counting down the days until he can escape high school — and the bullies that plague him there — to attend his dream college, Princeton. When his prideful cousin, EJ, is humiliated by a white bully, he recruits Jordan, and Kevonte, a bussed-in student from the other side of the tracks, to play a robbery prank on the bully. When the prank goes bad, leaving two white students dead, the boys struggle to avoid being caught and are each forced to confront the personal demons that come with being Black in the suburbs.