This Is My America by Kim Johnson - OPTIONAL

This Is My America by Kim Johnson, 406 pages Random House Children’s Books, 2020. $18

Language: R (69 swears, 7 “f”); Mature Content: PG-13; Violence: PG-13

BUYING ADVISORY: HS – OPTIONAL

AUDIENCE APPEAL:  AVERAGE

Instead of enjoying all of the “fun” high school life has to offer, Tracy Beaumont’s life is definitely a more mature one, as she had to grow up at a very young age. Her father has been in prison for seven years, and is on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. Tracy loves her Dad and writes faithfully each week to an innocence organization, in hopes that they will take her father’s case. If that weren’t enough, Tracy’s older brother, Jamal is accused of killing a white girl, who is one of their classmates, and is on the run from the local authorities. Tracy knows her brother is innocent as well, and goes to great lengths to investigate and try to prove his innocence on her own, and discovers a deep racial undercurrent tying both her father’s and brother’s cases together.

Kim Johnson’s story takes place in present day in a small Texas town. Tracy’s life is a story of African Americans fighting for their rights each and every day, and the challenges that still face them as they strive for the same liberties as white people truly take for granted. While I definitely wish there wouldn’t have been so much swearing, I feel like this story was well-written. However, both the content and theme were for very mature readers, and might be hard for some teenagers to process. The mature content rating was for language and sensitive racism scenes portrayed throughout this story. The violence rating was for murder and description of a photo of a lynching.

Reviewer: J. Nielson