

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. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. PUNCHING THE AIR by Ibi Ziboi and Yusef Salaam is out now My review is based on reading my finished copy. 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.

"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, he's seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system.

Perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, and Elizabeth Acevedo.Īmal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. 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.
