# 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

## Where this book is assigned

### Summer reading lists

- **recommended** · 11th grade · Massachusetts — [source: Middleborough High School (MA) — Summer Reading 2025, choose one per incoming grade](https://www.midlib.org/sites/midlib.org/files/images/MHS%20Summer%20Reading%202025.pdf)

## Banned / challenged record

Documented removals or formal challenges in at least one school district in 1 state: IL. Source: [PEN America's Index of School Book Bans](https://pen.org/banned-book-list/) 2022-2024.

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