Punching the Air
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- 99,00 kr
Publisher Description
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 Year
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. A must-read 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, because of a biased system he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated. 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 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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Young-adult author Ibi Zoboi teams up with prison reform activist Yusef Salaam for this breathtaking story, written entirely in verse. Salaam is one of the Exonerated Five—New York teenagers wrongfully incarcerated for a violent crime they didn’t commit—and the duo channel his experiences into the fictional story of a 16-year-old named Amal, a budding artist who’s sent to juvenile detention after a violent confrontation. Amal’s story gives readers an up-close and scathing view of the criminal justice system’s bleak absurdity. At the same time, Punching the Air feels like a scrapbook of its hero’s life, constructed of vivid childhood memories, bursts of creative inspiration, and letters from a girl he likes. Honestly, we can’t think of a more relevant book to read with young people or a more poignant example of the power of poetry and art to help us make sense of the world.
