Punching the Air
- Brand: Unbranded
Description
This book made my heart hurt. A short story, told in verse, drawing on Yusef Salaam’s experiences and channeled into Amal, a young man wrongly convicted of a crime. Injustice and justice was on the menu here and the use of verse poignantly reverberated the message. This is a novel filled with pain, but also with hope as the main character expresses himself through poetry and art. The novel becomes all the more poignant when you consider that one of the authors- Yusef Salaam- was himself wrongfully convicted of a violent crime as a teenager and served six years in prison before being exonerated. This won't take you long to read, but it will leave an impact and I would absolutely recommend it. The audiobook is beautifully done as well. I received an advance audio copy of this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own. There are stories like these that surpass the point of it being just fiction only and encompass the full capacity of what powerful storytelling can do, more than a non-fiction story ever could. Pasha, Omar T. (2022-01-18). "Punching the Air: Omar T. Pasha's 2021 BGHB Fiction and Poetry Honor Speech". The Horn Book . Retrieved 2022-01-22. 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?
I like novels written in verse because I find them refreshing and something out of the box. I belie it is not as easy as it sounds to write a story with depth and everything only in verse. This was my first time reading something by Ibi Zoboi and I am glad I did. The co-author is Yusef Salaam who has been convicted of a crime he did not commit years ago. This is not Yusef’s story but it is definitely inspired by it and that makes it more realistic. Another is that Punching the Air really explains how the prison system in America is a form of legal slavery-- it is written in the Constitution. Zoboi and Salaam decided to write the novel in verse to mirror Amal's connection to poetry, as well as to incorporate the concept of hip-hop, which Salaam refers to as "a genre that was created by us for us. It is the language of the people. It is a protest language. It is a way that we codify the more powerful and salient ideas. Poetry can capture a feeling and when it's being read or spoken, it's magnetic." [9] Reception [ edit ] 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.
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Schulte-Cooper, Laura (2021-02-17). "ALSC announces 2021 Notable Children's Recordings". News and Press Center . Retrieved 2022-01-22. The writing part didn't do much. The poetry lines, the verse didn't work for me. It felt like it was trying too hard but it did its job well of telling the story of the boy. It presented well the angst, the confusion, the loneliness, the beliefs of the narrator but I didn't get that connected to the character. I wanted to feel so much more for tthe character and the story. When you find yourself in dark places, there's always a light somewhere in that darkness, and even if that light is inside of you, you can illuminate your own darkness by shedding that light on the world.”
That's the Thirteenth Amendment, known for being the abolition of slavery. Except it didn't abolish slavery. Slavery still exists.Courtney, Pentland (2021-03-01). "Punching the Air". School Library Journal . Retrieved 2022-01-22. Though their sentences have been overturned, there’s no way one can ever make up for a lifetime’s worth of trauma. Yet the narrative of this story was purposely chosen to provide hope. a b Pineda, Dorany (2021-04-17). "Winners of the 2020 L.A. Times Book Prizes announced". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2022-01-22. Zoboi and Salaam met at Hunter College in 1999, two years before Salaam was exonerated for allegedly assaulting and raping a woman in Manhattan's Central Park. [8] Although Punching the Air is not based on Salaam's experience of racial profiling, “Amal’s character is inspired by him as an artist and as an incarcerated teen who had the support of his family, read lots of books, and made art to keep his mind free.” [8]
I haven't met a kind and wonderful teacher in my life till date. I find teachers in movies and books (nonfiction, memoirs, autobiographies) far more inspirational. Stevenson, Deborah (2020). "Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi". Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. 74 (2): 110. doi: 10.1353/bcc.2020.0724. ISSN 1558-6766. I don't think I can express how important, poignant and devastating this novel was to read. Written in collaboration with Yusef Salaam, one of the exonerated five, this clearly draws heavily in Salaam's own experiences to help shape the main character of Amal. Amal is simply a boy, in the wrong place, who makes one mistake that leads to devastating consequences. Al-Mateen, Sylvia (2020-06-17). "Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam: Finding Power Within". Shelf Awareness . Retrieved 2022-01-22. The highlight for me turned out to be the schooling system for such 'troublesome' kids while being behind the bars.
Amal sees the injustice in the system, sees how institutional racism marks him as a criminal even though he is a kid. He sees the very different life choices laid out for him and his friends, and for the white kids. The illustrations/formatting didn’t come across particularly well on the ebook galley but now I have a hard copy, I can appreciate how wonderful the formatting and design is.
- Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
- EAN: 764486781913
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