Should 5th Graders be Reading GHOST BOYS?
I’ve just finished Jewell Parker Rhodes’ novel, Ghost Boys, which was my first experience with Rhodes’ writing. I was favorably impressed on several levels. Her prose is vigorous and uncomplicated. She deals with the radioactive issue of policing and race in America with a admirable level of even-handedness and creativity. There are other very grown-up issues like poverty, death, and America’s ongoing struggle with race. All of these are explored with surprising grace.
Ghost Boys is also the focal point of controversy in South Florida where a police union leader, Paul Kempinski, has called for its removal from the Broward County Schools. Kempinski’s letter, which purports to unmask Ghost Boys as left-wing propaganda, has steered media reporting of the dispute. News stories readily quote Kempinski’s text without bothering with Jewell Parker Rhode’s brilliant book. Again and again I’ve read in media reports, “I haven’t read the book, but…”
I have read the book.
I cruised through Ghost Boys imagining what younger readers might be thinking as they worked through the story’s crisp sentences, numerous flashbacks, and poignant conversations. Mostly, I imagined a classroom of kids discussing what they read under the guidance of a sensitive teacher. If I were a 5th grader, I’d be proud of being able to polish off a 200 page book that ushered me into fresh thinking about some of our society’s most nettlesome questions.
I’d be pleased to have my grandchildren reading this book. I’d really be pleased if the Broward County School Board were reading this book.
It’s important to disregard Kempinski’s letter and read Rhode on her own terms—an exercise that we hope to foster in students. To this end, I’ve written a brief summary (with spoilers) of Ghost Boys and cited the worst of Kempinski’s mischaracterizations—which is basically the entire letter.
Jerome’s Story
The book is about Jerome, an inner-city Chicago kid, who both struggles in an impoverished neighborhood and is bullied at school. Jerome has some benefits as well. His family, which includes a live-in grandmother, is intact, hardworking, and attentive to Jerome and his sister, Kim.
Jerome’s school is depressingly bleak. Simply getting through the school day without getting beat up requires careful planning. Jerome has concocted a way to avoid three bullies in the lunchroom by retreating to a stall in an abandoned top floor restroom. Jerome shares his anti-bully retreat with a newcomer at school, Carlos, who is also a target for the bullies.
In the book’s most violent scene, Carlos and Jerome are attacked by three notorious bullies. The attackers retreat when Carlos produces a realistic looking toy gun. Later, after school, Carlos urges a nervous Jerome to take and play with the gun. As Jerome plays alone with the plastic pistol, police are summoned by an unknown caller and without confrontation or warning, Jerome is shot. Inexplicably, the officers also do not give Jerome first aid.
Jerome dies.
The balance of the book, narrated by Jerome’s after life self, is a series of scenes of people processing the tragedy of Jerome’s death. Jerome’s ghost, for example, observes his own funeral and Officer Moore’s Preliminary Hearings. These after death scenes are interspersed with a retelling of the events of the day that culminated with the shooting.
The most poignant of these scenes are set in Sarah Moore’s bedroom. Sarah is Officer Moore’s daughter who also must come to terms with what her father has done. Sarah is the most open-minded and open-hearted character in the book. She is probably in the same grade as Jerome and displays a capacity to feel empathy both for her father and for Jerome.
Most significantly, Sarah can see and speak with Jerome as a ghost. The reader may experience this contrivance as forced and inconsistent with Jerome’s complete separation from the other characters. Jerome’s grandmother displays some capacity to know when Jerome is present. (p. 23-4). And dogs in the story realize that he is around. (p.133).
Another literary contrivance is that other murdered Black boys inhabit the ghostly world that Jerome has entered. Jerome has joined a large historic company of police violence and police shooting victims. This allows Jerome to see and speak with Emmitt Till, a Chicago youth who was brutally lynched in Mississippi in 1955.
The conversations between Jerome, Sarah, and Emmitt Till, deal with policing, poverty, grief, and the far from finished struggle for racial peace in America.
Rhodes uses her novel to freshly explore a handful of poignant and timely themes that her young readers as news consumers will be well acquainted with.
Cluster of Prominent Themes
So as the readers–and I’m thinking mostly of students–works through this story, they will also be thinking about these ideas, which will shed light on fundamental challenges of living that we all wrestle with:
- The unavoidable need to revisit and revise the circumstances that lead to a tragedy such as Jerome’s death. This is grief-work for Jerome’s family. It’s truth-telling about the each participant’s contribution to a tragedy. It’s apology and admitting guilt. It’s speaking one’s truth. In Rhode’s novel even the dead have their work to do.
- The atmosphere in schools in low-resource public school districts and the violence that breeds in such circumstances. Related to this are the stark differences between poor children’s lives and the lives of kids growing up in middle class homes.
- People do horrible things in horrible circumstances. Even Officer Moore’s perceptions were powerfully distorted in a situation where he was set up to believe his life was in danger.
- There is a deep and continuing problem of race in America. One manifestation of this is that Black men are murdered more than other groups. While the circumstances of Jerome’s murder are ambiguous, the fact that another young Black male is dead fits a clear pattern.
Context
I recall reading The Incredible Journey in the fifth grade. It’s the comical and satisfying story of the three lost pets who manage to find their way home. One might ask why can’t fifth graders be reading books like that? The reason was splashed all over my television screen while I was writing this essay. The story of the Louisiana man who was murdered by police was after months released. Such violence existed in my early lifetime. Emmitt Till was lynched in 1955. It just wasn’t broadcast.
Students who read Ghost Boys will already be conditioned by overheated media that either paints police as demons or Black men as criminals. They will have seen video of police shooting unarmed Black children who are age peers. What Jewell Parker Rhodes describes in her book is hardly new for kids. Students will have heard extreme opinions from family and friends. To read Ghost Boys and hopefully to discuss with classmates, holds much promise to be a retreat from the propaganda saturated social media and lurid images and opinions.
Now to Paul Kempinski’s letter, written to the Broward County Public Schools.
I was upset to learn that some Broward County Public Schools’ 5th-grade classes are reading a book entitled, “Ghost Boys” written by Jewell Parker Rhodes. The book takes place in Chicago and the summary on the back of the book reads “Twelve-year-old Jerome is the latest victim, shot by a white police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a threat. As a ghost, he observes the devastation that’s been unleashed on his family and community in the wake of what they see as an unjust and brutal killing.” I have taken the time to read this book and am in disbelief that this would be a 5th-grade reading assignment, or that this book would be at all approved by Broward County Public Schools.
The book is told from the perspective of Jerome’s ghost, who for unknown reasons can interact with the police officer’s daughter, and who ultimately convinces her that her father shot and killed him because the police officer father is a liar and a racist. The book convinces its reader—the children of our community—that police officers regularly lie as they routinely murder children, while painting police officers as racists. What the book does not delve into is the viewpoint of anyone else but Jerome. When the officer testifies in court, Jerome quickly points out to the reader that the police officer is lying.
Further, the book barely touches on the decisions made by Jerome and his friend Carlos who is being bullied at school, and to help ward off the bullies, obtain a toy gun to scare the bullies away—a tactic that is successful in this story. This book fails to explain why two grade school-aged children felt they had no one to turn to when being bullied. It would seem they felt that they could neither confide in a family member nor a teacher or school staff member for help. Instead, the book encourages children to scare bullies off with a toy gun, while carrying the message, “The cops won’t hesitate to kill you if they see you with that toy gun—particularly if you are a minority.”
Our members feel that this book is propaganda that pushes an inaccurate and absurd stereotype this same time is reckless and ridiculous. The Washington Post also shows that since 2015, the vast majority of persons shot and killed by police are indeed White. The author’s statement of “…Black people are shot by cops two and a half times more than whites” is again completely inaccurate.
It is always a tragedy when a police officer must use deadly force, regardless of the circumstances. Certainly, the goal for police departments across the county is to reduce and eliminate violent crime. Unfortunately, in many parts of the country, we are seeing record-breaking numbers with regards to violent crime including homicide. Police officers go to work every day to make our communities safer for everyone. The vast majority of police officers will never discharge their firearms in the field. The vast majority of police officers will never use deadly force. The vast majority of police officers are good, hardworking people. With that said, police work is not perfect, and police officers are human beings –imperfect beings.
While I applaud Broward Schools for tackling the tough topic of social justice, using a book filled with misinformation, and a dangerous message that police officers are liars, racists and murderers are not good for our children our community or our future.
Further, many of our members have children enrolled in Broward Public Schools and think very highly of the education their children are provided but cannot fathom exposing their child to a classroom that is pushing this misinformation.
We respectfully request Broward County Public Schools remove this book from its schools. I encourage parents to send a message so their children’s school and members of the school board that they do want this book read in their class.
Why this Letter is a Problem
To appreciate how flawed Kempinski’s letter is I’ll take his assertions in turn:
"The book is told from the perspective of Jerome’s ghost, who for unknown reasons can interact with the police officer’s daughter."
Rhodes grants to some of her living characters the ability to perceive and even converse with persons on the other side of death. Jerome’s grandmother, for example, who is very religious has a faint awareness of Jerome’s existence in his life after life. Animals are effortlessly aware of the dead in the world of Ghost Boys.
Jerome’s ghost interacting with living people is a literary device which serves one of the book’s gratifyingly grownup themes, namely that the shooting of a child presses upon all of the characters the need to be transformed in some kind of spiritual way.
"...And who ultimately convinces her that her father shot and killed him because the police officer father is a liar and a racist."
Kempinski’s insistence that Jerome presses upon Sarah a cheap characterization of police as racist and dishonest is misleading. The first part of Jerome and Sarah’s conversation is as follows. Says Sarah:
“My dad was doing his job.”
“He said that?”
She presses her lips tight.
“He shot me.”
“My dad protects and serves. That’s what policemen do.”
“He didn’t protect me. Everybody in my neighborhood knows cops do whatever they want.”
“That’s not true. He upholds the law.” I grunt.[1]
During Sarah and Jerome’s conversation, Moore enters to kiss Sarah goodnight. Sarah asks her father:
“Dad? Is it true he was twelve?” Officer Moore holds Sarah at arm’s length. “It’s a rough neighborhood.”
“Same age as me.”
“You don’t know him. You didn’t see him.”
Sarah looks at me (Jerome, invisible to Moore). She does see me. We’re the same height. Probably in the same grade. Seventh. “He’s—” She points, stops, stutters. “He was my height.” Her father blinks, like he doesn’t recognize her. Like he can’t believe she’s contradicting him. She plunges on. “You said he was big. Scary.”
“I was there,” he fires back. “Not you.” Sarah lowers her eyes, clasps her hands, trembling. Her father leaves, slamming the door.[2]
Later in the book, Jerome visits Sarah again. Outside the Moore’s home BLM-type protestors scream for justice for Jerome. They serve as foils for the nuanced conversation between the Sarah and Jerome:
My parents don’t want me to read about it. See it.”
“See it?” Sarah’s eyes widen. “Video.” She inhales, stricken. “Maybe there’s video?” If there’s video, she’d know once and for all her dad lied. She stands in front of her computer.
“Maybe you shouldn’t, Sarah.”
She taps a button; the screen brightens.
“Maybe you should listen to your parents?” I don’t know why I’m saying this. Crazy, part of me doesn’t want to see Sarah hurt.
“I’d like to see it.” Determined, she sits in the chair, types my name, and pages of articles, links appear. She clicks. Seconds. That’s all. Two seconds. Me, standing. A police car, moving fast. I turn, fall. The gun skitters. I bleed.
“Dad didn’t warn you? He didn’t say ‘Halt, police’?”[3]
Sarah may be the book’s most admirable character. She walks a tightrope of loving her father and wanting to know the truth about the incident that took Jerome’s life.
Pressing Sarah is not Jerome’s agenda.
"…That police officers regularly lie as they routinely murder children, while painting police officers as racists."
This is a gratuitous smear of the book. The author’s writing style is from the perspective of Jerome and moves from one close focus scene to the next with minimal generalization of current social trends. Curiously, Rhodes herself wants the reader to know that her book is not a screed against police. In the discussion questions she suggests asking: “Does Ghost Boys strike you as an anti-police book? How does the book portray Officer Moore, and police in general?”[4]
This is not to say that Ghost Boys is not about race and the racialized killing of Black boys. This is where the Emmitt Till material comes in. When Jerome dies, he joins the ghostly company of Black men who have been murdered by Whites in America. Till was lynched, not shot by police.
What Rhodes is suggesting is the style and motive of the killers of Blacks changes through history. What remains constant is that Black men keep getting killed. The racism dwells somewhere other than in the character of hateful individuals. The racism that is diabolically ingenious in finding ways to murder Black men is lodged in American society itself.
The reader will have trouble locating race hatred in Officer Moore.
Further, Officer Moore never lies. His judgment is clouded in a dire moment when he first sees Jerome holding a “gun.” Moore is deeply frightened. Then he is paralyzed after he discharges his weapon. But he never tells a lie.
Rhode’s handles the overheated subject of police shootings of Blacks with exquisite nuance. Kempinski totally misses this.
“The cops won’t hesitate to kill you if they see you with that toy gun—particularly if you are a minority.”
Despite the quotation marks, these words appear nowhere in Ghost Boys. This isn’t even close to the book’s meaning.
Kaminski pads what remains of his letter with non-germane data about police firearm use and claims that union members agree with the letter’s sentiments, offers a patronizing salute to the school districts’ wading into the “tough topic of social justice,” despite the fact that it made an egregious error in selecting Ghost Boys for fifth graders.
"Finally, the author’s statement of '…Black people are shot by cops two and a half times more than whites' is again completely inaccurate."
Wrong again. Since Kaminski likes the Washington Post for its information about how often police fire their guns, he’ll doubtless find this quote from the Post compelling:
Once again, a close read of Rhodes’ text shows her mastery of nuance. This statistic is found on the lips of Sarah who, late in the book, has developed a website devoted to “‘End Racism, Injustice.’[5]
Recommendations:
- Parents, school administrators, and school board members should read Ghost Boys and evaluate on their own the validity of Kaminski’s assertions and what has been said here. It’s available inexpensively for Kindle here.
- Discussion of the book is all important. As I combed through the Kindle version of the book, I became more and more impressed with the author’s ability to raise profound issues in thoughtful and sensitive ways. Discussion will enable all readers to plunge more and more deeply into the ambiguities of our current social situation. Discussion will bring to the surface that simplistic solutions are no solutions at all.
- Include police in the discussion. Nothing would be more powerful than inclusion of police officers in a discussion of this book. Few classroom experiences were more powerful in helping kids cross a difficult and artificial divide than the day in 1975 when Mr. Rogers welcomed Margaret Hamilton, the Witch in the "Wizard of Oz," to his show. Fifth graders will spend the rest of their lives interacting with and benefiting from law enforcement and the justice system. It's probably best to start that conversation as soon as possible.
[1]Rhodes, Jewell Parker. Ghost Boys (pp. 64-65). Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Kindle Edition.
[2]Ibid. p. 66-7.
[3] Rhodes, Jewell Parker. Ghost Boys (pp. 107-108). Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Kindle Edition.
[4] Rhodes, Jewell Parker. Ghost Boys (p. 212). Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Kindle Edition.
[5] Rhodes, Jewell Parker. Ghost Boys (p. 178). Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Kindle Edition.”
