Yummy

 

Yummy by G. Neri

This book was very intriguing! The reader runs through an enormous gamut of emotions, ranging from angry to sad. It is based on a true story of an 11 year old (yes, you read that right) who finds himself mixed up in a gang in Chicago. Apparently, it used to be the law in the state of Illinois that a minor could commit any crime they wanted to and, no matter how heinous, they would be released from prison on their 21st birthday. This being said, gangs would target young kids, eager to join and impress, and send them out on their missions. Yummy, whose real name is Robert, decides he wants to join up when he is only a child. He begins committing small scale crimes like theft of candy bars from convenience stores, but soon finds himself in the midst of a full-fledged murder case in which he is the perpetrator. 

Jon D. Hull, TIME magazine, wrote: "...I still couldn't decide which was more appalling: the child's [Yummy] life or the child's death." (1994) If you decide to read this graphic novel you'll find yourself wondering the same thing.

It may seem that this book is not truly YA since the protagonist is 11 years old, but it is. Most of the rest of the characters in this book are in their teens. The topic of gang violence, crime, and the dark, daily life that the people of the Roseland area of Chicago lead and have to survive is certainly too mature to be put into an MG or children's book. The narrator of the book, Roger, is also an 11 year old. He and Yummy were in the same class at school. However, even though Roger has managed to stay away from the gangs that reside in his neighborhood and seems to be a fairly "normal" 11 year old the reader quickly learns he is mature beyond his years. Roger's older brother is in the same gang as Yummy and Roger talks about their life and the things he has been witness to: gang violence, local shop owners closing at 4:00 pm because no one will go out after dark for fear that they will be shot, etc.

The format of this graphic novel is unique due to the narration of Roger. This book is read left to right, front to back (panels and pages), as traditional American books. All the art is done in black and white. There is differentiation between characters speaking and the narration of Robert via the use of different fonts and the text boxes in which the words are written.

As I was reading this book 2 of the articles we read over the past couple of weeks came to mind. The first was the James Bucky Carter Interview from this week. In his interview, he mentioned the way he's noticed struggling readers become motivated to read when they are offered comic books or graphic novels. This struck a chord with me for 2 reasons: 1) I'm not a struggling reader, but, against my intentions, I sat down and read this graphic novel in one sitting. I was enthralled by the different texts (pictures and words) and I kept finding more details buried within the pictures than just within the story line I was reading. I imagine a struggling reader would get sucked in in a similar manner, even if it was by looking at the pictures first, and 2) last fall after taking Stan's Children's Lit. class I bought a couple of graphic novels and comic books for my classroom. I wasn't sure how they would go over, but it was something I wanted to try. I kid you not, within the first 15 minutes of them being placed on my shelf I was playing referee between 2 students in my classroom, neither of whom typically got over-excited about reading time. This refereeing lasted for several weeks.

The other article that this read brought to my mind was one from last week. It was entitled "The Truth About YA" and it was written by a YA librarian. In her article she discussed the darkness that seems to pervade the main topics of many YA books. I really have mixed feelings about this, but her insight was so eye-opening for me. Paraphrasing, she said "Why not?" Why should we be overly-concerned with young adults reading books that cover dark topics? Look at the real world they live in and the things they are faced with every day. The real world is a dark place and never including these topics in books would not be realistic. The librarian gave some statistics to back up her theory. She really got me to thinking and I really appreciated that.

As far as using this book in a school setting goes, I would use it, but I think I'd save it for upper-middle school kids or high school kids as the content is pretty heavy. Personally, I wouldn't hand this to a 6th or 7th grader to read on their own, though some people might not have a problem with that. (It does kind of depend on the kid). 

"Using Comics and Graphic Novels in the Classroom" - another article we read this week - gave me some good ideas on how I might use this as sort of a mentor text. It could definitely be used to teach proper punctuation for dialogue. Another suggestion this article gave was to use graphic novels to teach outlining skills. I don't think I would try that with this book, but it could be done.