Coming of Age

A Good Kind of Trouble is a coming of age novel for Shayla as she realizes that it is not always bad to get into trouble when good changes come from it. Shayla tells her reader that she is allergic to trouble, when she senses that something she is doing could cause trouble, her hands start to itch. When Principal Trask warns Shayla that if she continues to wear a black armband, in honor of Blacks killed in police shootings, at school, she will be punished, Shayla is surprised that she is even more determined to keep wearing the band. After the principal takes the black armbands from Shayla’s friends, Shayla passes more out at school allowing her and her friends to continue supporting their cause.

Shayla admits in the opening sentence of the novel that she does not like to get into...