This Is My America

March 27, 2020

Gr 9 Up-Desperate to raise awareness for her father's wrongful conviction case, Tracy Beaumont, 17, hijacks her track-star brother Jamal's TV interview. With less than a year until their father is executed for a crime he didn't commit, Tracy hopes the interview will gain the attention of Innocence X, an organization that helps overturn convictions. But the move puts her at odds with Jamal and their school newspaper's editor, Angela. Before Tracy can make things right, Angela is murdered and Jamal is the number one suspect. Now this likable, dogged narrator has two battle fronts and is passionately seeking justice. The story hits the ground running with the TV interview but loses momentum as it moves into introducing the rest of the characters and setting. The awkward pacing is most notable at the beginning, but persists with several stops and starts throughout the story. Despite the pacing issues, there is excitement aplenty, with skeletons in closets, a love triangle, dynamic secondary characters, and a seamless blend of realistic fiction and murder mystery. VERDICT The emotional descriptions are a bit perfunctory and consequently some of the events don't land with the expected emotional weight, but overall this is a strong debut. Will appeal to readers of Angie Thomas and fans of criminal justice podcasts like Serial and In the Dark.-Aaren Tucker, University of Illinois

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2020
Grades 9-12 Tracey Beaumont has always believed in her father, even after he was convicted and sentenced to death. She keeps her faith by regularly writing letters to Innocence X, which advocates for the wrongfully imprisoned. When her world is rocked once more by accusations against her brother, she does more than write. With a thirst for justice, she follows clues that unravel the hidden history of her town. But time is not on her side. With her brother on the run, the police manhunt is growing more fervent. Meanwhile, Tracey's investigations have caught the attention of long-hidden white supremacist organizations that will do anything to see her fail. Uniting a well-paced mystery with lessons about history and activism, Kim Johnson has penned a tale that manages to teach and thrill. Not only does it illuminate how prejudice can lie dormant and operate in the darkness, but it also shows how a community can rally to heal and support young people dealing with legacies of hate. This strong debut will strike home with socially conscious readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

Starred review from July 20, 2020
Activist Johnson’s powerful debut is a timely testimony that echoes the social realities behind today’s #BlackLivesMatter protests. For seven years, Tracy Beaumont, a Black 17-year-old, has written letters to Innocence X, a legal firm representing wrongfully convicted people on death row, begging them to take her father’s case. Her dad has less than one year left before he is executed by Texas for murder; the Beaumonts know both that he is innocent and that it’s easier for Galveston County to believe that a Black man committed the crime than to face the possibility of his innocence. As the clock ticks, Tracy is forced to relive her father’s arrest when a white sheriff accuses her elder brother, college-bound athlete Jamal, of murdering a white girl. Faced with the possibility of losing another family member to an unjust judicial system, Tracy begins her own investigation into the incident. Weaving together a gripping murder mystery and a heartfelt narrative about a girl trying to save her family, Johnson explores the systemic, generational effects of police brutality, mass incarceration, and racism on the Black community. Through Tracy’s work as an advocate, high school journalist, and Know Your Rights workshop leader, the author also offers a lens into combating social inequalities and their effects. A list of resources and suggested reading arms readers with valuable tools to promote change. Ages 12–up. Agent: Jennifer March Soloway, Andrea Brown Literary.

July 1, 2020
Tracy is running out of time. It's been seven years since her father was wrongly convicted of a double murder. Every week, Tracy writes to Innocence X, an organization that represents people who are unjustly convicted and sentenced to death, and tries unsuccessfully to convince them to work to get her father absolved and released. As if that burden weren't enough, Tracy's older brother Jamal is accused of killing Angela, a young white woman with whom he was secretly romantically linked. Now, Tracy not only has to get help for her father, whose execution date is less than a year away, but also must solve the mystery surrounding Angela's death, so that her brother doesn't suffer the same fate. This suspenseful story is unfortunately all too familiar -- Black people suffering at the hands of police violence, an unjust legal system, and disproportionate incarceration rates -- a narrative that is at once heroic and heartbreaking. Tracy is left to unravel a mystery that highlights and humanizes a number of pertinent issues regarding racism in America, the role of media and social bias in our perceptions of one another, and the grief and despair of the families of the incarcerated.

(Copyright 2020 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

September 1, 2020
Tracy is running out of time. It's been seven years since her father was wrongly convicted of a double murder. Every week, Tracy writes to Innocence X, an organization that represents people who are unjustly convicted and sentenced to death, and tries unsuccessfully to convince them to work to get her father absolved and released. As if that burden weren't enough, Tracy's older brother Jamal is accused of killing Angela, a young white woman with whom he was secretly romantically linked. Now, Tracy not only has to get help for her father, whose execution date is less than a year away, but also must solve the mystery surrounding Angela's death, so that her brother doesn't suffer the same fate. This suspenseful story is unfortunately all too familiar -- Black people suffering at the hands of police violence, an unjust legal system, and disproportionate incarceration rates -- a narrative that is at once heroic and heartbreaking. Tracy is left to unravel a mystery that highlights and humanizes a number of pertinent issues regarding racism in America, the role of media and social bias in our perceptions of one another, and the grief and despair of the families of the incarcerated. Monique Harris

(Copyright 2020 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from May 15, 2020
Showcases one family's persistent and courageous fight for freedom against a broken criminal justice system. At the center of this story is Tracy Beaumont, a black 17-year-old. Every week she's been writing letters to Innocence X (think Innocence Project or the Equal Justice Initiative) on behalf of her father, who has been sentenced to death row in their home state of Texas, wrongfully accused of murder. There's less than a year until it will be all over. Yet Tracy holds on deeply to hope that in her small-town neighborhood and across the U.S. people will recognize failures in justice. This is thrown into jeopardy when her older brother, Jamal, a local track star, is accused of killing a white girl. Could these two cases be connected? Tracy, an emerging journalist, has to wrestle with the present-day legacy of an overwhelmingly racist history, needing support not only from family, but also a strong legal team and, just maybe, a good cop, if there are any to be found. Johnson's debut draws on her own experiences as an activist to offer a realistic depiction of reckoning with the complex and too-often-fatal issues that plague black Americans today. Her belief in the power of social movements shines through, inciting a new generation of social change activists to be called into service of transformative change. Harrowing and worthwhile; a call-to-action from the anti-racist insights of a generation of black activists. (author's note, additional resources) (Fiction. 12-18)

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