This Is My America by Kim Johnson

Every week, seventeen-year-old Tracy Beaumont writes letters to Innocence X, asking the organization to help her father, an innocent Black man on death row. After seven years, Tracy is running out of time—her dad has only 267 days left. Then the unthinkable happens. The police arrive in the night, and Tracy’s older brother, Jamal, goes from being a bright, promising track star to a “thug” on the run, accused of killing a white girl. Determined to save her brother, Tracy investigates what really happened between Jamal and Angela down at the Pike. But will Tracy and her family survive the uncovering of the skeletons of their Texas town’s racist history that still haunt the present?

Whew, a tour de force from first time author Kim Johnson (with a top notch audiobook performed by Bahni Turpin). A fast paced, urgent, and compelling mystery through the lens of our country's baked-in racial inequality. The injustice for the Beaumount family shows rather than tells readers that the past is the present is the future and that history is living and constantly affects our society, our community, and people's everyday actions. This Is My America would be well paired in a classroom with the YA versions of Just Mercy or We are Not Yet Equal. This is one of my top reads of 2020 and I'll definitely be getting a book set for the library and recommending to students and teachers. I feel confident this will also show up on the 2021 Project Lit list!

Powerful. This is why I will never stop reading YA. I recommend reading it completely, including the Authors Note.

It is such a shame that this book was released in the middle of the summer of the pandemic. I feel it hasn't gotten the attention that it deserves. “This Is My America” gets at the heart of the Equal Justice Initiative's mission in this fictional tale about the Beaumont family that feels all too real. Tracy has been the past seven years writing letters every week to Innocence X (an organization with a mission similar to EJI) to help her father get off of death row and be released from prison because he is not guilty. She shows early on that she is willing to do anything it takes to get attention on her father's case, but when her brother, Jamal, becomes caught up in a so-called police investigation, all of Tracy's willpower will be tested. What follows is both a mystery as Tracy tries to find the real murderer and an unraveling of the complex and historic racial tensions in her community. She's not alone, though, as she often has friends who are like family that come to her rescue along the way. Tracy shows courage, intellect, and a well-described growth trajectory as she further becomes one very keenly aware and of her surroundings and her ability to affect change. This is a must read for fans of Just Mercy, Dear Martin, and anyone else who is interested in the mission of the Equal Justice Initiative but prefers fiction to nonfiction. A great read.