Alfonso ack teenager, gifted student, the son of a wrongfully imprisoned father 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" irits of past victims of racial violence ide 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.

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.

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)

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. (Oct.)

Medina combines Hamlet with the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement in a moving portrayal of a young man robbed of his future. This graphic novel tells the story of Alfonso Jones, an African American teenager gunned down one afternoon in a case of mistaken identity while shopping for a suit with his girlfriend. The reader gets to know Alfonso through stories he relates about his childhood, by hearing his thoughts in the afterlife, and by seeing how his death affects his loved ones. Sadly, Alfonso is misrepresented in the media coverage of the murder. Robinson and Jennings’s choice to use only black-and-white illustrations may turn off some readers, but this choice results in powerful illustrations. Young readers will see themselves in Alfonso—flirting with his would-be girlfriend; getting excited to meet his father who was unfairly imprisoned before Alfonso was born; and finally, dealing with the unwanted role of martyr. The book is accessible to young readers, but some parents and librarians may be concerned about the weighty subject matter, so the maturity of the reader is something to keep in mind. For the right readers, however, this is an important and timely book that should be included in school collections.—Kate Neff.