Description
Punching the Air
Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam
(HarperCollins)
£7.99
Amal didn’t want to go to the skate park with Omari. It’s a ‘no go’, whites’ only area, yet Amal was persuaded. Thereafter, his misgivings are proved correct when the group is surrounded and insults are hurled. Amal throws the first punch, yet it’s not the punch that leaves Jeremy Mathis unconscious. Amal did not do the crime for which he is convicted and sent to prison.
Thereafter, this boy of words and music is diminished by hostility and a lack of hope as he tries to make sense of his life, the guidance of Umi, the fateful night and how he might move ahead. It seems as though he is Punching the Air, seeking fairness from the law, the system, from the chinks of light from the poetry tutor…
Yusef Salaam, one of the Exonerated Five, collaborates with bestselling writer Ibi Zoboi on Punching the Air. It pulls no punches in recreating the unfairness of the system that incarcerates black boys, and thereafter abandons them. This is harsh, real, dreadful writing- dreadful in that it is a stark wake up call as to what too many youth face. Yet the writing, the illustrations, the moments when Amal finds a pen, has a letter, imagines, hears and shares, are glorious. We long for his truths…. Punching the Air is a magnificent verse novel for Young Adult readers, that we urge them to choose.
Punching the Air
Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam
(HarperCollins)
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