My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich

Idi Zoboi is the author of My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich, which she published in 2019. An author of many other books for young readers that highlight the voices of people of color, My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich focuses on an imaginative 12-year-old Black girl, Ebony-Grace, who loves outer space and superheroes but must spend a summer away from her beloved grandpa and live with her dad in New York City. The book centers on themes like Imagination Versus Reality, Self-Expression and Identity Creation, and Growth and Acceptance.

The page numbers in the study guide refer to the Dutton Children’s Books 2019 e-book edition.

Content Warning: The book features racism, refers to drug addiction, and arguably alludes to sexual misconduct.

Plot Summary

Ebony-Grace lives with her grandpa (Granddaddy) and mom (Momma) in Alabama, where Granddaddy became one of the first Black engineers to work for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Though Momma doesn’t like it, Granddaddy tells Ebony-Grace stories about outer space, turning the girl into Space Cadet E-Grace Starfleet and himself into Captain Fleet. The stories contain references to funk music and Star Trek—the science-fiction franchise that started as a TV show in the 1960s. Granddaddy is a good person, but an unspecified scandal surrounds him. While Momma helps him confront the controversy, Ebony-Grace goes to live with her dad (Daddy) in Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City predominantly populated by people of color.

As it’s the summer of 1984, Ebony-Grace sees news reports about terrible things in New York City. She folds the trip into her outer-space narrative, turning New York City into Planet No Joke City and Daddy into King Sirius Julius. Daddy isn’t an odious king but a working-class person who owns a car repair shop and tries to help people in his community. Nevertheless, Ebony-Grace sees him and Harlem as enemies.

The exception is Bianca Luz. Daddy lets her and her grandma live in the brownstone, and Ebony-Grace has known Bianca since she was in single digits, and the two used to play outer space together. Bianca still plays outer space, but she also wants to dance and rap. She’s a member of the Nine Flavas Crew, who do double-Dutch, breakdancing, and rapping.

Ebony-Grace refers to the girls as “nefarious minions,” upsetting Bianca: They’re not evil followers––they’re her friends. Each crew member has a “flava,” and Bianca’s is Butter Pecan. The leader is Chocolate Chip Monique, who labels Ebony-Grace an “ice cream sandwich”—chocolate on the outside and vanilla on the inside. Ebony-Grace waves off the diss: Chocolate and vanilla is a “flava,” and, besides, Ebony-Grace would rather be an astronaut than a “flava.”

Though the relationship is more frenemy than friendly, the crew tries to include Ebony-Grace in their activities. They invite her to hold the rope, but her imagination takes over, and she spins it faster and faster, thinking she’s teleporting Bianca to the spaceship Uhura. Instead, she makes Bianca fall, and the girls think she’s trying to kill them.

Bianca and Ebony-Grace continue to fight, and Daddy talks to Ebony-Grace about managing her imagination. Crying, Ebony-Grace tells him she wishes she could be “normal.” Daddy corrects her: She doesn’t want to be “normal,” but maybe she can be less “outta space.” Daddy takes Bianca and Ebony-Grace to see Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, where the crew members can use the Genesis Device to bring back the dead and fix the broken. Looking around the messy, crumbling city, Bianca and Ebony-Grace think New York City could use the Genesis Device.

Outsider Dapper Dan’s counterfeit clothing shop, the Nine Flavas Crew sees a poster for a contest at the Apollo Theater—a famous Harlem theater that showcases Black performers. To get the money for the costumes and entrance fee, the girls have to win the contest that’s part of the block party led by Daddy.

Granddaddy wired Ebony-Grace money so she could come home and visit him. Momma doesn’t want Ebony-Grace to visit, so Daddy takes the money and applies it toward the contest. The cash falls out of his pocket, and Ebony-Grace seizes it.

The contest is a disaster, as the 10-person all-boy crew splits into two five-person crews, so they’ll get all the prize money. The girls tell Daddy that the boys are being unfair and that they should get to compete, but Daddy doesn’t listen. Ebony-Grace tries to help by disrupting the contest and breaking, giving the girls a chance to showcase their skills, but her plan doesn’t work.

Feeling bad, Ebony-Grace gives the girls the money that Granddaddy sent her, but Daddy thinks Uncle Rich took the money. They fight, and the cops come. They seize the money and put Daddy in jail. As Ebony-Grace can’t help Nine Flavas with money, they stop interacting.

Ebony-Grace can’t visit Granddaddy, but she can speak to him on the phone before he dies. He tells her about the Prime Directive, which means she can’t try to change reality and other people’s ways. She can’t impose her outer-space narrative on everybody. She has to accept the world as it is. Ebony-Grace follows Granddaddy’s advice, and she and the girls reconcile, with Nine Flavas expressing their condolences over Granddaddy’s death. Daddy flies with her back to Alabama, and Ebony-Grace is glad she didn’t eradicate him or his planet. Thinking about the Genesis Device, she realizes she has to change, not the world around her.