{"id":9971,"date":"2010-09-19T09:19:42","date_gmt":"2010-09-19T13:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=9971"},"modified":"2014-05-19T13:31:17","modified_gmt":"2014-05-19T17:31:17","slug":"yummy-the-last-days-of-a-southside-shorty-by-g-neri-illustrated-by-randy-duburke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/yummy-the-last-days-of-a-southside-shorty-by-g-neri-illustrated-by-randy-duburke\/","title":{"rendered":"YUMMY: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty by G. Neri, illustrated by Randy DuBurke"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Yummy<\/a>True stories about kids with tragic endings are undoubtedly effective in fueling parents’ worst nightmares. This one proves especially haunting.<\/p>\n

Six years ago today, “Yummy” Sandifer made the cover of <\/a>Time <\/a><\/em>magazine<\/a>. Along with his mugshot were the words, “The Short, Violent Life of Robert ‘Yummy’ Sandifer: So Young to Kill, So Young to Die.” He was 11 years old, four-feet-tall, maybe 60 pounds \u2013 and he was the little boy murderer of a 14-year-old girl. With his own brutal death, he became the “poster child for youth gang violence in America.”<\/p>\n

Captured in stark black-and-white graphics that underscore the bleakness of Yummy’s short life,\u00a0writer\/filmmaker\/producer\u00a0G. Neri<\/a> reimagines what Yummy’s existence might have been like before he was gunned down. Neri creates a fictional narrator, Robert, who tells Yummy’s story; Neri culled Yummy’s tragic past from actual public records, media reports, and personal accounts.<\/p>\n

Called “Yummy” because of his love of cookies and sweets, Yummy lived with his grandmother, removed from his mother’s custody after her 41 arrests for drugs and prostitution.\u00a0When Yummy joins the infamous Chicago gang, The Black Disciples, he earns himself a gun. Gangs enable and encourage children to regularly commit crimes because they can only be tried as minors, which means they will not receive the harsher adult sentences.<\/p>\n

Weapon in hand and “looking to impress,” Yummy inadvertently kills Shavon Dean, who was sitting on her front steps with friends.\u00a0Yummy instantly goes on the run … but he’s just a young boy (who still needs a teddy bear to help him sleep). Before his grandmother can help, the Black Disciples find Yummy and he becomes just another number in a fast-growing body count.<\/p>\n

As a teacher in South Central Los Angeles, Neri was no stranger to dysfunctional homes, some marked by violence and jail. He argued with his students whether Yummy “was a victim or a bully.” Neri “wasn’t sure who the bad guy was.”\u00a0Neri’s narrator Robert echoes what many voiced after Yummy’s death: “I don’t know which was worse, the way Yummy lived or the way he died.”<\/p>\n

Six years later, Yummy’s wasted young life remains an all-important lesson for too many at-risk children: as the preacher at Yummy’s funeral intoned, “Cry if you will, but make up your mind that you will never let your life end like this.”<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Middle Grade, Young Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

True stories about kids with tragic endings are undoubtedly effective in fueling parents’ worst nightmares. This one proves especially haunting. Six years ago today, “Yummy” Sandifer made the cover of Time magazine. Along with his mugshot were the words, “The Short, Violent Life of Robert…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[142,73,30,20,31],"tags":[6608,74,58,75,10,11,3152,68,24,3153,44,3154],"class_list":["post-9971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-black-african-american","category-graphic-novel-manga-manwha","category-middle-grade-readers","category-nonfiction","category-young-adult-readers","tag-bookdragon","tag-bullying","tag-coming-of-age","tag-death","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-g-neri","tag-haves-vs-have-nots","tag-historical","tag-randy-duburke","tag-siblings","tag-yummy-the-last-days-of-a-southside-shorty"],"yoast_head":"\nYUMMY: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty by G. 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