Catalogue

Record Details

Catalogue Search


Back To Results
Showing Item 4 of 5

Punching the air abb  Cover Image E-book E-book

Punching the air abb

Zoboi, Ibi Aanu. (Author). Salaam, Yusef. (Added Author). Recorded Books, Inc. (Added Author).

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. 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.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9780062996503
  • ISBN: 0062996509
  • Physical Description: electronic resource
    remote
    1 online resource
  • Publisher: [S.l.] : Balzer + Bray, 2020.

Content descriptions

Target Audience Note:
12 years and up.
Source of Description Note:
Title from resource description page (Recorded Books, viewed June 29, 2020).
Subject: YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Law & Crime
African Americans -- Fiction
Artists -- Fiction
False imprisonment -- Fiction
African American teenage boys -- Fiction
Teenage artists -- Fiction
Judicial error -- Fiction
Male prisoners -- Fiction
Discrimination in criminal justice administration -- Fiction
Criminal justice, Administration of -- Fiction
Justice -- Fiction
Genre: Young adult fiction.
Electronic books.

Electronic resources


  • Horn Book Magazine Reviews : Horn Book Magazine Reviews 2020 #5
    Sixteen-year-old Amal Dawud Shahid (who is African American) knows he didn't throw the punch that left Jeremy Mathis (who is white) injured "so bad / that he can't wake up / to tell the truth." But Amal is nevertheless arrested and sent to trial. As this first-person verse novel begins, testimonies from witnesses are "like a scalpel / shaping me into / the monster / they want me to be." Amal is found guilty and sent to a juvenile detention center, where he is thrust into a world of unspeakable danger and despair. Even in the direst of circumstances, though, there are moments of peace for Amal -- through protection from fellow inmate Kadon and his crew, letters received from his crush, and his talents for poetry and the visual arts (Kadon calls him "Young Basquiat"); Pasha's spare but evocative black-and-white illustrations are interspersed throughout. Zoboi and Salaam's expert placement of lines on the page reinforces the harsh reality of the school-to-prison pipeline, with repeated visual and textual imagery of "squares...corners...boxes" reflecting Amal's feelings of suffocation and frustration. However, as he reminds himself, "Amal means hope," and the sympathetic, nuanced portrayal of this young man will have readers holding out hope until the novel's end. An author's note details Zoboi's connection to and ultimate collaboration with Salaam, along with his history as a member of the "Central Park Five," now the Exonerated Five. Eboni Njoku September/October 2020 p.108 Copyright 2020 Horn Book Magazine Reviews.
Back To Results
Showing Item 4 of 5

Additional Resources