Yummy: The LAst Days of a Southside Shorty

Neri, G. (2010). Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty. New York : Lee & Low Books. Robert “Yummy” Sandifer was an 11 year old child living with his grandmother who was a guarding to 20 or so other grandchildren. He was sent to live with his grandmother because his father was in prison and his mother was always in and out of prison, but also very abusive to Yummy. Yummy was a lost child that had no guidance, support, or love from family members. He seeks out for a place to belong and be accepted and lands in the arms of a gang called Black Disciple. In 1994, Yummy killed an innocent bystander while firing a gun into a crowd of rival gang members. Roger a neighborhood boy watches what happens to Yummy and his older brother in the gang. Roger spends his days and nights trying to figure out the whereabouts of Yummy and why he made the choices he made. Roger uncovers that the Black Disciple’s decide to hide Yummy from law enforcement and move him around for three days. Yummy gets scared and is tired and decides to call his grandmother for help. Before she arrives to pick up Yummy, he is murdered by the people who he thought were his “family,” The Black Disciples. They decided that there was too much attention on them and fear that he would become an informant. Gary, Roger’s brother, begins to contemplate on his future with the gang and rides home with his family. Yummy’s story appeared on the cover “Time” magazine. Even though gang related violence hasn’t decreased in the inner city of Chicago, it makes people aware of the impact these gangs have on vulnerable children. Neri depicts Yummy’s life through illustrations seeing the cold-blooded murderer to the boy who loved candy and a teddy bear. He was able to take a national story and intertwine it with fiction to show the perspective of young children that are exposed to these issues on a daily basis. One would hope that with authors like Neri can reach children and sought out alternatives to life rather than finding themselves in the same predicament and the innocent/murderer of Yummy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKRsEDPi32g