I Am Alfonso Jones

October 2, 2017
Readers might feel that Harlem high school student Alfonso Jones is almost too good: he studies hard and always returns from his bike messenger rounds promptly so his mother doesn’t worry. But when he goes downtown with his crush to buy a new suit, a cop mistakes the clothes hanger he’s holding for a gun and kills him. Readers who wondered at Alfonso’s saintliness now watch as the media and justice system rush to vilify him. Alfonso, meanwhile, finds himself on a ghost train with his ancestors, other victims of police killings who share his agony and offer comfort. Enlivened by high-voltage sequential artwork from Robinson and Jennings, Medina (I and I Bob Marley) takes on a host of difficult questions. A hip-hop Hamlet created in Alfonso’s English class frames his experience as ghostly murder victim. Alfonso’s father, incarcerated for years, has just been exonerated; his triumphant return was the occasion for the suit purchase. At the story’s heart is Alfonso’s mother’s plea: if the officer’s school had taught him more about the world, she mourns, he might have seen Alfonso “as a teenager... as an American, as a human.” Ages 12–up.

Starred review from January 1, 2018

Alfonso's playing Hamlet's ghost-father in his school's hip-hop version of the play while hoping for a second role as Danetta's boyfriend. But buying his first suit, he becomes a real ghost when a police officer mistakes a coat hanger for a weapon and shoots him. In the afterlife, he awakens in a subway train among other ghosts, who share their own experiences with police brutality. A gut-punching trip into a Black Lives Matter story, with black-and-white art. Teacher's guide available. (Xpress Reviews 11/3/17)

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 1, 2017

Gr 9 Up-Alfonso Jones loves to play trumpet and is thinking of trying out for his class's hip hop-themed Hamlet. On a shopping trip with his crush Danetta, the African American teen, who is looking for his first suit to wear in celebration of his father's release from jail, is shot by a white off-duty cop who incorrectly assumes the suit hanger is a gun. The rest of the graphic novel jumps among Alfonso's past, the aftermath of the shooting, and his experience on a possibly never-ending train ride with other victims of police violence, including Amadou Diallo as his guide. Medina's juggling of the three threads isn't always graceful, but the variation of Robinson and Jennings's panels and design pushes the narrative forward. A teacher's dialogue with Alfonso's classmates is illuminating and realistic. The outrage and grief are palpable, and the black-and-white illustrations enforce the gut-punching pull of each character's journey. And as Alfonso meets the historical figures who preceded him, readers will understand the systemic racism that underlies these violent cases. VERDICT A brutally honest and bleak but necessary selection for all graphic novel collections.-Shelley M. Diaz, School Library Journal

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2017
From the afterlife, black teenager Alfonso Jones, a 15-year-old victim of police brutality, watches the effect his murder has on his loved ones and community.The first page is dedicated to the image of a sole speeding bullet, which catches up to fleeing Alfonso on Page 2 in a powerful, heart-rending image. The next few chapters flash back to Alfonso's life: biking around Harlem, spending time with his mom, and joyfully learning his wrongfully convicted father will be released from prison. Narrator Alfonso chronicles his fondness for playing trumpet, acting, and his fellow thespian Danetta. As the pair shop for a suit for Alfonso to wear to his father's release, Alfonso is murdered by a white off-duty police officer. Afterward, Alfonso finds himself on a subway with strangers who turn out to be ancestors: all are unable to find peace when there is no justice. There are no pat solutions here, and readers are left to wonder if Alfonso will ever leave the ghost train. One of the final pages includes images of real victims of police brutality, and the book closes with a vigil for Alfonso. Some of the most profound truths come from Alfonso's grieving survivors. "We're not going to let you make a circus of our pain. Our black misery is not for your white amusement!" declares his mother; his grandfather reminds readers, "Too many of our people are getting vacuumed into the prison industry, or killed for no rational reason whatsoever but the skin they're living in...." Painfully important. (Graphic fiction. 12-18)

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 15, 2017
Grades 5-8 Alfonsoblack teenager, gifted student, the son of a wrongfully imprisoned fatheris shot dead by a police officer. His crime? Shopping for his first suit to celebrate his father's release. Alfonso awakens on a purgatorial ghost subway. There ancestors spirits of past victims of racial violenceguide him through his life, his parents' lives, even the life of the officer who shot him, as well as showing him the consequences (and lack of consequences) that follow his death. Medina, likewise, guides readers through the world that contemporary African Americans live in, a world where justice does not seem to exist. Yet, he preserves a thoughtful perspective and a sense of balanced humanity through Alfonso's loving family and his school cohort, and he staves off suffocating solemnity with a lyrical turn of phrase and insightful allusions to literary ghosts. The illustrators evoke honest emotion but allow figures to burst with an animated energy that offsets the high verbosity. Warning: there are no happy endings here. The book ends, but Alfonso's purgatorial quest for justice does not.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2018
In the afterlife, African American fifteen-year-old Alfonso meets "Ancestors" who, like him, were killed by white police officers. Medina's emotional narrative starts tightly, with the illustrators' black-and-white visuals zoomed in closely on a single spiraling bullet; the story expands, exploring Alfonso's life and bringing his death and those that survive him steadily into view. This emotional graphic novel avoids contrived solutions and false senses of closure.

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

March 1, 2018
Early in this emotional graphic novel, fifteen-year-old Alfonso Jones (who is black) is shot and killed by a white off-duty police officer while shopping for a suit to wear to his exonerated father's release from prison. The community and national outcries are tumultuous and devastatingly familiar as Alfonso's family and friends demand justice: No justice?no peace! Protesters chant those words; communities eviscerated by police violence and enraged anew by Alfonso's murder chant them. But alongside them, tucked into a subway train in the afterlife, Alfonso hears the same words said by his fellow passengers? Ancestors whose lives were also taken by police officers and who cannot now find rest. Medina's textual narrative starts tightly with black-and-white visuals that follow suit, zoomed in closely on a single spiraling bullet. And from there it expands, exploring Alfonso's bright, short life and bringing his death and those that survive him steadily into view to confront the repercussions of white supremacy. No contrived solutions or false sense of closure disrupt the narrative's expanding path as it touches on related issues of poverty and mass incarceration. An appended author's note, information about The Real-Life Ancestors of This Book (e.g., Eleanor Bumpurs, Amadou Diallo), and an Ancestors Wall listing the names, ages, and dates and places of death bring readers back to the real-life victims of police violence and leave them with a concluding call to action. anastasia m. collins

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)