I Am Alfonso Jones
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Average rating4
Alfonso Jones can't wait to play the role of Hamlet in his school's hip-hop rendition of the classic Shakespearean play. He also wants to let his best friend, Danetta, know how he really feels about her. But as he is buying his first suit, an off-duty police officer mistakes a clothes hanger for a gun, and he shoots Alfonso.
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Wow. So many accessible entry points here for teen readers into unjust policing, the black lives matter movement, activism, and the arts. Medina's poemlike text is very well done and the graphics are so emotionally and contextually additive to the story. The back matter is some of the best I've seen and gives readers needed history if they didn't already come to the story with that knowledge. Ordered a small group set of these for the library and I can't wait to get them into a class and pair them with so many other great works: March Trilogy, Yummy, New Jim Crow, Between the World & Me, Racial Profiling, THUG, All American Boys, Dear Martin...the list can keep going on.
This had a very convoluted storyline. The chapters were hard to keep track of. I wanted to like it because the subject matter is so important but the execution was pretty off
