A discussion guide for reading groups working through The New Kid Code together — twelve questions organized by act, plus three activities built for a group rather than a worksheet. Written for readers around 9 to 12, and for the adult running the room.

Free to reproduce for book club, classroom, and library use. It prints cleanly — use your browser's print command and choose Letter paper.

About the book

Maya Reyes is starting over for the fourth time, and she has a system for it. Find the quiet bathroom. Study the lunchroom before choosing a table. Be friendly, but never get close enough that leaving hurts. She keeps the rules in a worn notebook she calls the New Kid Code, and Rule Five is the one that matters most: friendly is not the same as friends.

Then Priya arrives, noticing all the things Maya does not say — and everything Maya built to protect herself gets harder to follow.

Act One — the system (chapters 1–4)

  1. Why does Maya have rules at all? What do they protect her from? Do you think the system actually works?
  2. Maya watches Priya struggle at lunch and does nothing. Was that the right choice? What would you have done?
  3. Marco makes a best friend almost immediately. Maya has been at the school for weeks and has made none. What does that difference say about each of them?
  4. One of Maya's rules is to be helpful but not impressive. What is the difference? Can you think of a time that rule applied to your own life?

Act Two — the crack (chapters 5–11)

  1. At the barbecue, Maya laughs at something Priya says before she can stop herself. Why is that moment so important? Have you ever had one like it?
  2. Destiny is not mean, exactly — she is strategic. What is the difference? Is what she does to Priya wrong even if it is not cruel?
  3. When Priya goes off with Destiny's group, Maya tells herself she is fine. Do you believe her? What is Maya actually feeling?
  4. Maya tells Priya about a real friend from a past school. Why was that harder to say than anything else? What made it different from ordinary conversation?

Act Three — Rule Six (chapters 12–14)

  1. Dad mentions a possible reassignment at dinner without saying much. How does Maya know it is serious? What clues is she reading?
  2. When Priya comes back to the library, Maya does not say I told you so. Why not? What does that tell you about who Maya is?
  3. At the end, Maya gives Priya a page from her notebook — not the whole Code, just two rules. Why those two? Why write them instead of just saying them?
  4. Rule Six is written with a note admitting she is still not sure it was a good idea. Why leave the doubt in? What does that tell us about Maya?

Activity: Maya's backpack

Maya's backpack carries a keychain from every place she has lived — each one small enough that nobody asks about it, and specific enough that she never forgets.

Have everyone draw their own backpack and add at least three things to it: keychains, pins, patches, whatever fits. Each one should stand for a place they have been or a memory that matters. Then go around the group. The rule is that you have to say what each item is, but you never have to explain why it matters.

Activity: overheard at the lunch table

At one point a classmate describes Maya and Priya to his mom in five words, and the description is both completely wrong and completely fair.

Ask each person to write a one-sentence description of every other member of the group — the way a stranger at the next table would describe them, not the way a friend would. Read them aloud without saying who wrote what. Then discuss: which ones stung a little, and why? What does a stranger get right?

Activity: the Rule Six challenge

Maya's Rule Six is that some people are worth the complicated part.

Before the meeting ends, ask everyone to write their own Rule Six — one sentence, a rule they actually intend to follow. Share them aloud. Nobody has to explain theirs. Saying it out loud is the whole exercise, which is exactly the thing Maya spends an entire novel not doing.

Going further

  • Write. Rewrite the epilogue's text exchange from Priya's point of view. What is she not saying in each message?
  • Research. Look up Joint Base San Antonio–Lackland. What can you find out about it? How does it compare to how it appears in the book?
  • Create. Design the cover of Maya's notebook. What would it look like after four schools, and what would she write on the first page?