This is My America

 

Tracy Beaumont is a seventeen-year-old student and activist. For the past seven years she has been working on appealing her father’s case. Now Tracy’s father James is on death row and is running out of time. Tracy has been writing letters to Innocence X every week for the last seven years to get an attorney to help save her innocent father. All her troubles increase when her bother Jamal becomes the main suspect for the murder of Angela, the school newspaper’s editor-in-chief. Thus begins a race against time to prove both James and Jamal’s innocence.

Kim Johnson has chosen themes that every reader, no matter what age, will be hooked on when they open the book. Tracy is a loveable, but at times irritating, character. There is sadness, mystery, excitement, and first love. But more importantly, Johnson highlights people with underrepresented voices. Within the novel, Johnson is reminding the reader that white supremacy still exists in many communities in America. Anyone who has ever enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee will love this book because it is a step closer to highlighting the wrong that Black communities often face in their everyday life. This is an important book that discusses the criminal justice system in America and police brutality. It is hard to put down.

Anet Rumberg