Ghost Boys

At a Glance

Twelve-year-old Jerome is shot by a Chicago police officer while playing with a toy gun in his neighborhood. As a ghost, he meets Emmett Till — murdered in 1955 — and discovers a long procession of Black boys killed before their time. Jerome's only connection to the living is Sarah, the white daughter of the officer who shot him, who is grappling with what her father has done. Together, across the boundary between the living and the dead, Jerome and Sarah try to understand how history keeps repeating itself — and what it would take for it to stop.

Why This Book Matters

Ghost Boys arrived in 2018 at the peak of a national conversation about police violence, race, and the American justice system. It became one of the most frequently assigned middle-grade novels in American schools, used by teachers who needed a text that could open discussions about race and justice with students as young as ten or eleven. It also became a focus of book challenges and bans — precisely because it accomplishes what it sets out to do.

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