Yummy

Review
By The Comics Reporter

It’s hard not to admire a lot of the work that must have gone into the middle-school graphic novel Yummy: The Last Days Of A Southside Shorty. It takes on a hugely worthy and admirably contemporary subject . . . with a great deal of sympathy. Yummy’s greatest virtue is that it stays away from easy answers as to the child’s reasons for doing what he did, both generally and in the specific circumstance of Dean’s shooting. Sandifer’s typical-kid attributes, such as a teddy bear with which he’s seen by several of the neighborhood kids, contrast sharply with some of his extremely troubling criminal activities, such as setting fire to a man’s car. With a book aimed at young readers, it’s doubly impressive that the authors would walk this particular line, because of the potential for accusations that doing so makes excuses for the murdered child’s shooting of Dean. Trusting the readers to come to the story’s greater meaning on their own is a brave step, and one for which you hope the authors are rewarded. —The Comics Reporter