After a brief italicized paragraph giving context to the crime, the first chapter in this powerful work opens with the frank and immediate voice of an adolescent sentenced to death. Told in passages from the present as well as in flashbacks, three young men offer raw insight on their life behind bars and tales from their individual experiences in judicial systems that support capital punishment. Author Susan Kuklin provides the framework for this emotionally and politically charged book, but the bulk of the content comes directly from her interviewees. Now past their teenage years, the inmates reflect on their crimes, their sentences, and the punishments to body and mind incurred in prison. In addition to chapters on these three, Kuklin also includes the perspectives of persons outside of prison through interviews with family members. The first dialogue comes from a young man whose older brother was given the death sentence, and the impact it has had on his life. The second dialogue tells the story of two siblings whose young lives have been shaped by the grief stemming from the death of their brother, whose murderer is in prison for life without parole. The final chapter gives testimony from the lawyer for two of the prisoners, offering a legal vantage on their lives and their crimes. This compelling and unforgettable volume is a discussion piece for a range of concrete subjects—violent acts, the U.S. legal system, capital punishment, human rights—as well as philosophical concepts of self-worth, redemption, and forgiveness. (Age 14 and older)

No Choirboy takes readers inside America’s prisons, and allows inmates sentenced to death as teenagers to speak for themselves. In their own voices—raw and uncensored—they talk about their lives in prison, and share their thoughts and feelings about how they ended up there. Susan Kuklin also gets inside the system, exploring capital punishment itself and the intricacies and inequities of criminal justice in the United States.

This is a searing, unforgettable read, and one that could change the way we think about crime and punishment. No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.