Punching the Air by Ibi ZoboiMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. Perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, and Elizabeth Acevedo.
The story that I thought
was my life
didn’t start on the day
I was born
Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. “Boys just being boys” turns out to be true only when those boys are white.
The story that I think
will be my life
starts today
Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal’s bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it?
With spellbinding lyricism, award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam tell a moving and deeply profound story about how one boy is able to maintain his humanity and fight for the truth, in a system designed to strip him of both.
The story that I thought
was my life
didn’t start on the day
I was born
Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. “Boys just being boys” turns out to be true only when those boys are white.
The story that I think
will be my life
starts today
Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal’s bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it?
With spellbinding lyricism, award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam tell a moving and deeply profound story about how one boy is able to maintain his humanity and fight for the truth, in a system designed to strip him of both.
--
Wow, this book. I am SO glad I heard the authors talking about it at an online con, and so glad I decided to order a copy of it, and so glad that I then ordered a second copy of it when the first copy got soaked and was unreadable, and just so so so glad I've read it.
It's amazing.
It's a novel-in-verse about a Black teenage boy called Amal who gets into a fight with his friends against some others and punches a white boy. The white boy's now in a coma, and although Amal didn't throw the last punch--the one that put the boy into a coma--he finds himself locked up in a juvenile detention facility. This book exposes the injustices and racism within the system (both the justice system and the prison system), and it examines racial profiling. One of the authors, Yusef Salaam is also one of The Exonerated Five and has personal experience of this happening to him. Although this isn't his story (as an author's note tells us), some of Yusef's own poetry is infused into Amal's story. And, wow, it's just SO powerful.
The language and rhythm in this poetry is phenomenal.
This book should be required reading in all schools.
View all my reviews
Wow, this book. I am SO glad I heard the authors talking about it at an online con, and so glad I decided to order a copy of it, and so glad that I then ordered a second copy of it when the first copy got soaked and was unreadable, and just so so so glad I've read it.
It's amazing.
It's a novel-in-verse about a Black teenage boy called Amal who gets into a fight with his friends against some others and punches a white boy. The white boy's now in a coma, and although Amal didn't throw the last punch--the one that put the boy into a coma--he finds himself locked up in a juvenile detention facility. This book exposes the injustices and racism within the system (both the justice system and the prison system), and it examines racial profiling. One of the authors, Yusef Salaam is also one of The Exonerated Five and has personal experience of this happening to him. Although this isn't his story (as an author's note tells us), some of Yusef's own poetry is infused into Amal's story. And, wow, it's just SO powerful.
The language and rhythm in this poetry is phenomenal.
This book should be required reading in all schools.
View all my reviews
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