Parents' Guide to

Ghost Boys

By Mary Eisenhart, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 10+

Heavy look at black kids killed due to bigotry.

Book Jewell Parker Rhodes Contemporary Fiction 2018
Ghost Boys Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

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age 11+

Based on 4 parent reviews

kate1991
kate1991 Adult
March 21, 2021
age 10+

An excellent and important read

This is an excellent book with a strong and important message. I read this to my Year 5 (9-10 years) class and they were gripped and responded with brilliant observations and questions. I did however omit the part which describes the details of Emett Till's death as I did think that short part in particular was more age appropriate for older children.

This title has:

Educational value
Great messages
1 person found this helpful.
CSMContentDefault
CSMContentDefault Adult
July 4, 2020
age 10+

A Timely and Important Read

Trigger warning for threatened gun violence from a minor, bullying, fatal police brutality, and lynching. Considering the current events in the United States, I believe it's necessary now more than ever that parents take the time to educate their children about racism, police brutality, and how they can dismantle systemic racism by undoing racial biases within themselves. Ghost Boys illustrates those messages perfectly for the middle-grade audience. It is a difficult book to read through. It even made me, a twenty-one-year-old English major who has read arguably more disturbing content for school, cry. The six other police brutality centric novels I read before this didn't do that, not even The Hate U Give. If your child is capable of digesting heavy topics through fiction, I recommend that you read this with them and look through the discussion questions in the back of the book.

This title has:

Educational value
Great messages
1 person found this helpful.
See all 4 parent reviews

What's the Story?

Twelve-year-old Jerome, the pride of a poor, hardworking black family in Chicago, is bullied at school. His new friend Carlos scares the bullies away with a toy gun and then gives the toy to Jerome, who's soon out in the street playing with his new toy --- which he knows very well his parents wouldn't allow, but he loves the newfound sense of power. Someone calls in a police report of a gun-brandishing man in the street, and Jerome gets shot dead by a white police officer. As his family and the officer's family fall apart in grief and guilt, Jerome finds himself among centuries' worth of GHOST BOYS, including Emmett Till (lynched in Mississippi in 1955 at the age of 14), who tell their stories of racist violence. And he forms an uneasy friendship with Sarah, the daughter of the man who shot him, as she's the only living person who can see him.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (4 ):
Kids say (8 ):

Jewell Parker Rhodes and her newly killed 12-year-old narrator tell the ripped-from-the-headlines story of another black kid with a toy gun shot dead by a white cop. It's a harrowing, heavy, and sometimes heavy-handed tale with no winners. As the story unfolds and the Ghost Boys gather, we learn a lot about atrocities against other black kids, including Emmett Till, whose murder plays a role in the story. The book presents a lot of serious issues, a lot of complexity, a note of hope, but no quick solutions.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about the racial prejudice shown in Ghost Boys. Where does it comes from? Where does it lead? And how can we get past it? How do other stories you know on this theme deal with the issue?

  • What do you think of having the story's narrator be a dead person who meets other kids in the afterlife and can be seen by one living kid? Why do you think the author made those choices?

  • Do you think it is a school's responsibility to keep kids physically safe? If kids are not safe at school due to bullies, what should they and their parents do?

Book Details

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