A layered exploration of grief.
In this graphic adaptation of Rhodes’ award-winning 2018 novel, the spirit of a 12-year-old, who was killed by a white police officer while playing outside, is tethered to that of other murdered Black boys.
Jerome Rogers’ parents work long hours, and his grandmother takes care of the house. He’s a loving child who follows the grown-ups’ admonitions as he walks to school with his sister through their perilous Chicago neighborhood. Being a good student makes Jerome a target for bullies, and he befriends new student Carlos, who’s also a target. Carlos offers Jerome a toy gun to defend himself from his persecutors, a spontaneous gesture that has tragic consequences. Now a spirit who can only be seen by Sarah, the daughter of his killer, Jerome witnesses his family’s agony while attempting to process his own grief and stolen dreams. The ghost of Emmett Till appears, showing Jerome his own story and telling him to “bear witness,” but Sarah, who struggles with the fallout from her father’s actions, doesn’t know how to help. Fiadzigbey’s panels are interestingly varied: On the opening page, readers look down from above as the cop stands over Jerome’s small, dead body, unaware that Jerome’s spirit is looking on, too. Paradis effectively uses colors to deepen the emotional impact of the text. Readers will emerge with a more nuanced view of the impact of generations of racism and the ways our actions affect our social systems.
A layered exploration of grief. (Graphic fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780316279673
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Little, Brown Ink
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK TO SCREEN
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