Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Annelie Geissler
Categories
Books for very young children, children’s picture books & activity books

I AM ALFONSO JONES

John Jennings Stacey Robinson Tony Medina

In the first graphic novel for young readers to focus on police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement, as in Hamlet, the dead shall speak - and the living yield even more surprises.

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. When Alfonso wakes up in the afterlife, he's on a ghost train guided by well-known victims of police shootings, who teach him what he needs to know about this subterranean spiritual world. Meanwhile, Alfonso's family and friends struggle with their grief and seek justice for Alfonso in the streets. As they confront their new realities, both Alfonso and those he loves realize the work that lies ahead in the fight for justice. In the first graphic novel for young readers to focus on police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement, as in Hamlet, the dead shall speak - and the living yield even more surprises.

Available products
Book Published 2017-10-12 by Tu Books / Lee & Low Books

Comments

I Am Alfonso Jones, meanwhile, stands as a valuable tool for educating young people about the history of police injustice. Read more...

I Am Alfonso Jones is many things - a thoughtful, multi-layered story, a history lesson, and a sobering tale of race and justice in these times. This riveting graphic novel is for young people who deserve a better world and for adults dedicated to helping them achieve it. Read more...

Painfully important. Read more...

...Enlivened by high-voltage sequential artwork from Robinson and Jennings, Medina (I and I Bob Marley) takes on a host of difficult questions... 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." Read more...

Tony Medina's article in the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Journal, Language Arts, titled, "Alfonso Jones Matters." This is a personal narrative detailing Tony's construction of a protagonist for a graphic novel that captures the quest for justice at the heart of the Black Lives Matter movement. Read more...

In the aftermath of his senseless murder at the hands of a policeman, Alfonso's story powerfully illustrates the value inherent in every human life and the tragedy of loss suffered by all who are impacted. With echoes of Capra's It's A Wonderful Life, by the book's conclusion, you too will be saying, I Am Alfonso Jones. Read more...

...a powerful examination of grief, rage, and the responsibility that the living owe the dead... A deeply felt and absolutely necessary story that humanizes characters too often relegated to statistics and headlines; sure to spark strong responses and debate among readers. Read more...

Unapologetic about its anger, this title will resonate with readers for whom "No justice, no peace" is more than a meme. Read more...

Teacher's Guide Read more...

I can't say enough how important, beautiful, heartbreaking, and tremendous a book this is. Read it. Gift it to a young person in your life. Shout it from the rooftops. I Am Alfonso Jones is a crucial part of the conversation and it demands to be heard. Read more...

...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. Read more...

...If this sounds like the makings of an angry book, well, it is. But Medina's nuance with the characters, Robinson and Jennings' free-flowing and accessible artwork, plus the plot device of having Alfonso's ghost watching over the proceedings while his high school class mounts a hip-hop version of Hamlet, balances out the mood and infuses the otherwise grim narrative with a sense of hope and resilience. Read more...

Watch the BCALA / GNCRT Black Lives Matter Comics Reading List panel discussion with Stacey Robinson and John Jennings. Read more...

Warning: there are no happy endings here. The book ends, but Alfonso's purgatorial quest for justice does not. Read more...

...this is an important and timely book that should be included in school collections. Read more...

Read the Foreword by Bryan Stevenson and Tony Medina's Author's Note Read more...

Book Trailer: I Am Alfonso Jones Read more...

Loaded with historical facts, knowledge, and glimpses into the lives of those who deal with harassment and brutality everyday based on the color of their skin. Totally a must read. This book should be in every high school library. Also this book would be great for discussing police brutality and #blacklivesmatter. The victims stories shouldn't be silenced. Their voices need to be heard. Read more...

I AM ALFONSO JONES won a (Skipping Stones Magazine) Skipping Stones Honor Award and is a Black-Eyed Susan Book Award Nominee (Maryland Association of School Libraries)

We are so fortunate that Tony Medina and his generation have taken on their shoulders the classic responsibilities of telling stories that embrace the hearts and souls of not only the individuals but the neighborhoods. A comic book is no longer something to laugh with but something to learn from. I Am Alfonso Jones is incredibly enlightening. Read more...

I AM ALFONSO JONES is a The Latinidad List of Best Books of 2017 New York Public Library Best Books for Teens In the Margins Top Ten List American Library Association (ALA) Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens Forbes Ten Best Graphic Novels of 2017 Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) Choice New York Public Library Best Books for Kids

A high velocity, gut wrenching story... Packed with history, knowledge, and life this is graphic storytelling at its best. Read more...

What a phenomenal graphic novel. ... This look at the prison industrial complex, the Black Lives Matter movement, police brutality, and the various systems of violence and oppression that have always existed in this country is devastating and important. Read more...

A brutally honest and bleak but necessary selection for all graphic novel collections. Read more...

Brimming with history and spirituality, I Am Alfonso Jones is a refreshing and necessary exploration into police brutality. With both word and art, Medina and Jennings have breathed new life into this longstanding movement. Read more...

I Am Alfonso Jones is a wonderful, sad, anger inducing, slice of life and afterlife with a helping of Hamlet sprinkled in for flavor, of a graphic novel. It paints a searing portrait of the emotional heart break and pain at the origins of the Black Lives Matter movement. Read more...

Medina, Robinson, and Jennings do for us what the ghosts do for Alfonso in their story. They help us to see. They help us to remember. They help us to understand. A must read. Read more...

This story of love and rage is conveyed with a surreal cast of characters. Alfonso's story, and the stories of the others on the ghost subway will both grieve and inform, allowing readers to access the language to talk about class and race discrimination, and the very real fact of the American propensity for violence by police against people of minority race and class. There is no solution to Alfonso's murder, no tidy wrap-up of his death in which the rest of his community lives happily ever after, but they do live, as we do - in love and defiance, never forgetting that justice has not been served. Read more...

Lyrical, poetic language and expressive, emotive illustrations make I AM ALFONSO JONES an exquisitely crafted work of art, as well as a gripping and compelling read. Although this story of senseless violence and police brutality is especially timely, its themes--the strength and power of family and community in the face of oppression, and the presence of the dead in the lives of the living--are timeless. Read more...