Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty

by G. Neri

Gang violence, a young boy trying to prove himself and find family and protection, Chicago 1994. This is the true story of Robert "Yummy" Sandifer, who, at the young age of just 11, shot and killed a 14-year-old girl Shavon Dean in his neighborhood.  Yummy was then on the run for three days while there was a massive manhunt for him, or, as the story's narrator calls it, a "boy hunt" because that's what he was. Caught up in an older gang called the Black Disciples, this graphic novel account of this true story makes you question whether Yummy was a cold-blooded killer or just another victim of the gang world's control over...
inner city projects like Chicago's Southside. This story is tragic and the graphic novel illustrations are gripping. I could not put this story down, especially since it was based on a true story. Check out the Time Magazine below with a picture of the real Robert Sandifer on the cover. He's just a boy! One of the characters in this story angrily comments that, "This is the only way someone from our neighborhood is ever gonna be on the cover of Time." This story is gritty, raw and told through the honest eyes of another young boy in the neighborhood watching this all go down in September of 1994.


Yummy: the Last Days of a Southside Shorty from Greg Neri on Vimeo.


--Ms. Bell