I have finished the Newbery Awards. I have already reviewed the Coretta Scott King author award winner, One Crazy Summer which was a Newbery Honor achiever as well. There are three Coretta Scott King author honors that I will be presenting next. The first is Yummy.
I will reiterate that I don’t read Juvenile Non-Fiction. Oh, I flip through the pages as part of my job. I might even read a non-fiction picture book if it’s not sports related. If the topic is particularly interesting to me, I might actually read through it. I’m more apt to look at all of the bright, beautiful pictures in a Nic Bishop “insert-animal-species-here” than read about the animal in the photographs.
Having said that, when I realized that Yummy was a graphic novel, I hesitated. I hesitated a long period of time. I requested it through interlibrary loan. (Decatur Public might not get it at all...) When I had it in my hand, I still didn’t commit to reading it. It’s a fictionalized account of a true story. Do I refuse to read it because it’s non-fiction? Do I make myself read it because it’s fictionalized like yesterday’s Samurai? Do I refuse to read it because it’s a graphic novel? I REALLY don’t care for those. They are too distracting in my opinion (said the girl who really wants a copy of the Bible in graphic novel format. Hmmmmm.)
In the end, it was only 94 pages and I read the first 20 pages zippity quick, so....
Why am I procrastinating with this review? I’m not quite sure who I would recommend it to if I were even going to recommend it. This is the story of the 11-year-old boy who made the cover of Time magazine with the headline, “too young to kill; too young to die.”
Yummy, as he was known to his classmates because he enjoyed sugary foods, lived on the south side of Chicago and was a member of the Black Disciples, a gang. Trying to prove his loyalty and gumption, he pulled a gun on a rival gang member and shot. Unfortunately, he missed and shot and killed an innocent bystander instead – a 14-year-old neighborhood girl with aspirations to become a hairdresser.
Yummy is on the run from the police. At first, the Black Disciples assist in hiding him right under the noses of the cops. But as the story goes national, the attention is too much for the Black Disciples and they start to hunt for Yummy as well. Yummy is shot and killed by his own fellow gang members.
This graphic novel, illustrated in stark black and white pictures, is written in the voice of another boy, Roger, of the same age as Yummy. They knew each other, lived in the same neighborhood, and attended the same school. Roger’s older brother is in the Black Disciples also. Roger is trying to decide “why?” the boy who slept with a teddy bear and could be very normal had turned into a monster.
The book seems more appropriate as a reading assignment in a college sociology class, the topic being “violence in inner city, black communities.” Why is it? And how can we stop it?
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