# Just Mercy (Adapted for Young Adults)

**Author:** Bryan Stevenson
**Lexile:** 1130L
**Grade range:** Grades 9–12
**Age range:** 14–18
**First published:** 2018
**Page count:** 304
**Genre:** Young Adult Nonfiction / History
**ISBN-13:** `9780525580034`
**ISBN-10:** `0525580034`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/just-mercy-young-adult
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Lawyer Bryan Stevenson recounts founding the Equal Justice Initiative and defending people condemned to die — centering on Walter McMillian, a Black man wrongly sentenced to death in Alabama. The young-adult adaptation makes Stevenson's account of racial injustice, wrongful conviction, and mercy accessible for grades 9-12, where it is increasingly assigned in social-justice and American-studies units.

## Themes

- justice
- race
- mercy
- incarceration
- power

## Content notes

- racism
- death penalty
- injustice

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