Ghost Boys

Jerome, a twelve-year-old black boy, is fatally shot while playing with a fake gun, by a police officer who thinks the gun is real, and once dead Jerome roams with the ghost boys, black children killed because of racial intolerance. Jerome is befriended by ghost boy Emmett Till, who was killed in Mississippi in 1955 simply for speaking to a white woman, and it becomes clear that the ghost boys cannot move on until racial murders stop. This timely and approachable novel deals with issues of racial injustice, slavery, and the mistreatment of racial groups, and can launch discussions about current happenings in the US, especially the shootings of young blacks by police officers. Suitable for grades 4-9.