Punching the air

The Resource Punching the air
Label
Punching the air
Statement of responsibility
written by Ibi Zoboi with Yusef Salaam ; illustrations by Omar T. Pasha
Creator
Contributor
Author
Illustrator
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
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. "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
Awards note
  • Walter Award for Teens, 2021
  • Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Honor Award, 2021.
Cataloging source
CNWPU
Illustrations
illustrations
Index
no index present
Interest level
UG
Literary form
fiction
PerformerNote
Pasha, Omar T., illustrator
Reading level
5.7
Study program name
Accelerated Reader
Target audience
adolescent
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