Amal knows that the only fact holding weight is that he is black and Jeremy is white.

Nor does the truth about what happened that night: the racial slur that instigated the fight, others' actions and Amal's actual involvement. Where Amal came from and who he really is-a beloved son, an artist and poet, a student aiming for college-do not seem to matter in the courtroom. He knows the details well because Umi, his mother, makes him watch a video of it every year, insisting ' you gotta remember/ where you came from!' This memory is quickly supplanted by the bleak present: Amal is in a courtroom awaiting a verdict on his involvement in a fight that left another boy, Jeremy Mathis, in a coma. Part one of three opens with 16-year-old Amal recounting his birth. The poems-sharp, uninhibited and full of metaphors and sensory language-quickly establish Amal's voice, laying bare the anger, despair, hope and talent it holds. Zoboi and Salaam masterfully join forces in this mesmerizing novel-in-verse. 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.Punching the Air, by Ibi Zoboi ( American Street) and activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five, tells the unforgettable story of Amal Shahid, a teenager incarcerated for a crime he did not commit. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison. “Boys just being boys” turns out to be true only when those boys are white. Then, one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy.

But even in a diverse art school, because of a biased system he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated.

A must-read for fans of Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, and Elizabeth Acevedo.Īmal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. New York Times and USA Today bestseller * Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor * Walter Award Winner * Goodreads Finalist for Best Teen Book of the Year * Time Magazine Best Book of the Year * Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year * Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year * School Library Journal Best Book of the Year * Kirkus Best Book of the Year * New York Public Library Best Book of the Yearįrom 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.

Punching air book