Jay Jay Patton

A girl struggles to cope with her dad in prison and then again when he returns to the family. Interesting points are made, but I grew bored with the stiff and simplistic writing and art that are probably aimed at readers much younger than I.

The ending really fizzles out with some jarring and abrupt scene changes that try to cover too much too quickly. The end matter starts with photos of the family and morphs into a cross-marketing brochure for the foundation with which they are currently show more involved, leaving a last impression of this being a promotional work.

(Best of 2024 Project: I'm reading all the graphic novels that made it onto one or more of these lists:
• Washington Post 10 Best Graphic Novels of 2024
• Publishers Weekly 2024 Graphic Novel Critics Poll
• NPR's Books We Love 2024: Favorite Comics and Graphic Novels

This book made the NPR list.)

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents:Where's Dad -- Welcome Home -- Re-introductions -- Patching Things Up! -- The Coder -- [Timeline] show less

Great! The artwork was so cute and this was a simple, quick read. I would have liked it to be expanded more as the narrative felt slightly thin, but I enjoyed the reading experience.

I came in expecting the memoir to solely discuss the author’s experience growing up with an incarcerated parent, and it did to an extent. But the brunt of the memoir explores how Patton's interest in STEM (coding specifically) first sparked and how the PhotoPatch Foundation came to be.

SN: Why was the mama so show more beautiful lol? I loved it when I saw her on the page. show less

In this graphic memoir, Jay Jay Patton talks about what it was like growing up with a father in prison, how the two of them stayed connected during that time, and the work the two of them did on the Photo Patch Foundation, an app designed to help children more easily stay connected with an incarcerated parent.

Patton's father was incarcerated from when she was age 3 to about age 10. She was only able to see him a couple times during that period, and calls to her dad's prison were expensive. show more They wrote each other as often as they could and Patton's father, who learned coding while in prison, would send her math puzzles to solve.

About halfway through the volume, Patton's father came home, and the whole family moved to Florida. The rest of the story was about Patton's efforts to adjust to her new life, her own budding interest in coding, her father's work on the Photo Patch website, and her own work on the Photo Patch app.

By the end, this kind of felt like an extension of Photo Patch marketing efforts. I wished it had stayed more focused on the relationship between Patton and her father. This felt a bit surface-level, and I was left with a few questions that were never answered.

Extras:

Photographs of Jay Jay and her dad, Antoine, and a little info about the Photo Patch foundation.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

I've been reading more contemporary graphic novels this year, and there seems to be two types - informational and educational, and telling their life's story. This is definitely the former.

Even when I was a kid I was pretty good at figuring out which books were telling a story and which were trying to influence the reader, and I preferred the story books.

This story wasn't really about growing up with a dad in prison, because the dad comes home at the very beginning. This book is about a show more girl who learns to code, and creates an app so parents and kids can stay connected when a parent is in prison.

It's a real app, and I'm sure it is helpful to families in these situations. But I also feel like I was tricked into reading an advertisement.

The informational graphic novels I've read this year, including this one, often mentions conflicts, but then never brings them up again and we don't get conclusions. show less