In If You Come Softly, Jacqueline Woodson wrote about Jeremiah, who is Black, and Elly, who is white, and how they fell in love. At the wrenching ending of that novel, teenager Jeremiah, running home in high spirits from Elly’s, is shot and killed in the park by a police officer looking for a Black man suspected of a crime. Behind You begins in the first moments after that agonizing event. In a beautiful and astonishing opening chapter, a soul looks down on the body of Jeremiah. It is Jeremiah’s soul, disbelieving, trying to distance itself from what has happened: “Your soul thinks—somebody loved that boy once. Thinks—once that boy was me.” In the story that follows, the people who loved Jeremiah the most—Elly, each of his parents, his closest friends—react to their loss in a story in which grief and longing feel woven into the very fibers of the pages. Yet this is not just a story of hurting but of healing as well. Gradually those who loved Jeremiah reawaken to feelings other than pain and numbness. His life connects them one to another as well, and in those connections some of them find courage. At the same time his loved ones are healing, Jeremiah is too, with the soul of his grandmother to help him let go of all he has left behind. Woodson’s extraordinary narrative is a lyrical and moving work from the first page—an epigraph by Raymond Carver that ends “And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth. ”—to the last page. (Ages 14–18)

A moving story of love and loss from National Book Award winner , Jacqueline Woodson. Great for fans of Angie Thomas and Nic Stone.

You are so light you move with the wind and the snow. . . . And it lifts you up-over a world of sadness and anger and fear. Over a world of first kisses and hands touching and someone you're falling in love with. She's there now. Right there. . . .

Miah and Ellie were in love. Even though Miah was black and Ellie was white, they made sense together. Then Miah was killed. This was the ending.

And it was the beginning of grief for the many people who loved Miah. Now his mother has stopped trying, his friends are lost and Ellie doesn't know how to move on. And there is Miah, watching all of this--unable to let go.

How do we go on after losing someone we love? This is the question the living and the dead are asking.

With the help of each other, the living will come together. Miah will sit beside them. They will feel Miah in the wind, see him in the light, hear him in their music. And Miah will watch over them, until he is sure each of those he loved is all right.

This beautiful sequel to Jacqueline Woodson's If You Come Softly explores the experiences of those left behind after tragedy. It is a novel in which through hope, understanding and love, healing begins.