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    Punching the Air
    Punching the Air
    Punching the Air
    Ebook401 pages2 hours

    Punching the Air

    By Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 YOTO CARNEGIE MEDAL

    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 the Noughts & Crosses series and The Hate U Give.

    One fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighbourhood escalates into tragedy. ‘Boys just being boys’ turns out to be true only when those boys are white.

    Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal Shahid’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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateSep 1, 2020
    ISBN9780008422158
    Author

    Ibi Zoboi

    Ibi Zoboi is the New York Times bestselling author of American Street, a National Book Award finalist; Nigeria Jones, a Coretta Scott King Award winner; Pride; My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich; Okoye to the People: A Black Panther Novel for Marvel; and the Walter Award and LA Times Book Prize–winning Punching the Air, cowritten with Exonerated Five member Yusef Salaam. She is also a two-time Coretta Scott King Honor Award winner for her picture book The People Remember and her middle grade biography of Octavia Butler, Star Child. She is the editor of the anthology Black Enough. Born in Haiti and raised in New York City, she now lives in New Jersey with her family. You can find her online at ibizoboi.net.

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    Reviews for Punching the Air

    4.5/5

    98 ratings8 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This should be required reading in high school. Stories about young people aimed at young people. Heartbreaking truthfully and critically needed to be heard by all.
    • 5/5
      audiobook teen novel in verse inspired by real people/stories (wrongful incarceration of Black Muslim artist/poet teen, story of hope)
    • 5/5
      Powerful and an absolute must-read for children and adults. I'm still thinking about this book trying to organize my feelings into a coherent thought. It was very impactful and takes the reader on an emotional journey.
    • 4/5
      Amal tells his story of a fight gone wrong, an arrest, trial, and his time in juvenile detention. A promising artist - he uses his art and words as a way to tell his truth and try to stay free. But people around him keep putting him in boxes. With a strong correlation between school and jail, Amal tries to adjust to his current reality. His supportive family feed his spirit and mind. But it's hard. The poetry is sparse and powerful. Yusef Salaam brings his experience as a partner in this collaboration to this story.
    • 5/5
      This book gets you RILED up - the injustice of it all will have readers angrily turning pages and looking for the hope and beauty in an impossible situation. Written in poetry and prose with art interspersed throughout - Amal's story of how he became incarcerated is powerful and painful. A young Black teen in the wrong place at the wrong time he is now paying the ultimate price. He's unfairly convicted of a crime that he didn't commit and it's hard to keep from drowning in the biased, uninspiring detention facility. Why is the system stacked so hard against him? Will art and poetry save him or will it just drag him down? I would LOVE to discuss this book at a juvenile detention facility - the kids in there would relate so hard to this book. I hope that after covid this book is an option I can bring to the table - their insight and personal experiences would bring so much to the table. A fantastic and powerful book.
    • 4/5
      A gorgeous piece of art, Punching the Air deserves all the accolades and attention it is receiving. Acclaimed YA author Ibi Zoboi and Exonerated Five member Yusef Salaam have collaborated to write this beautiful novel-in-verse that tells the story of Amal, a Muslim teen accused of attempted murder during a street fight. The authors push the boundaries of free verse and storytelling in the best way, and the results are emotional and a painful exploration of our white supremacist judicial system.
    • 5/5
      This book was fantastic. It’s a collaboration between Ibi Zobi and Yusef Salaam, best known as an inspirational speaker and one of the exonerated five. This is not Yusef’s story, but it has similarities. Amal was wrongfully convicted. A mediocre lawyer and another boy in a coma lead to his guilty verdict and time in a juvenile facility. The words flow so well. It’s almost a shame I didn’t read this novel in verse, but the lyrical quality of the audiobook is like the best song ever heard. The reader is enveloped in the story. We follow Amal through the court battle, and then through his time locked up. My guy is a corrections officer and found himself just as engaged as i was. He freely said, it’s sad, but many institutions are like this. And Tattoo should be the first staff member “defunded”. Uggghhhh. To think people like that work with juveniles. I love that Amal didn’t give up. That he kept learning, both by books, and about himself. Amal was not a “thug”, but a student of life at the wrong place and the wrong time. This was a fantastic listen, and I am sure the read is just as great. This will be on many best of best lists, as well as genre and subject lists for years to come.
    • 5/5
      As is often the case with books in verse, I was so impressed with the level of depth the authors achieved with so few words.

      There’s something of a mystery unfolding through this novel as gradually Amal reveals what happened the night of the alleged crime that sent him to juvenile hall, but for the most part this is the story of life in juvie, it’s as tough to read about as it should be, just as the narrative is as honest as we all need to be about the inequities in the justice and education system (his art history teacher is particularly maddening). So yeah, generally, this is not a fun read, but it is a thoughtful and thought-provoking read.

      While Punching The Air features plenty of heavy subject matter, Amal does experience moments of light as well through a handful of people who truly care about him (from his life before prison and his life inside), through books, and most importantly to him, through poetry and art, as hopeless as parts of this book can feel, there is some genuine joy in the rare occasions when Amal has the freedom to create, what a difference even a broken crayon makes to his day, how it lifts him up even if only for a moment, it’s a beautiful thing in a story about how ugly world can be.

    Book preview

    Punching the Air - Ibi Zoboi

    Part I

    Birth

    Umi gave birth to me

    at home

    She has a video

    and every birthday

    she makes me watch

    When I was little

    I would run away

    Umi would laugh and say

    Come here, boy

    You gotta remember

    where you came from!

    She’d chase me around

    that small apartment

    and I’d cover my eyes and

    pretend to be gagging

    That’s nasty, Mama, I’d say

    That’s life, Amal

    You have to respect it

    she’d say

    Umi was in this inflatable pool

    in the middle of our living room

    with the midwife next to her

    My father was holding the camera

    She was taking deep fire breaths

    eyes closed tight, not even screaming

    almost praying

    Then the midwife plunged

    both her hands into the pool

    And then

    there I was rising out of water

    Squirming little brown thing

    barely crying

    big eyes wide

    as if I’d already done this before

    as if I’d already been here before

    Umi says

    I was born with an

    old, old soul

    Old Soul

    The thing about being born

    with an old soul

    is that

    an old soul can’t tell you

    all the things you weren’t supposed to do

    all the things that went wrong

    all the things that will make it right again

    The thing about having an old soul

    is that

    no one can see that it’s there

    hunched over with wrinkly brown skin

    thick gray hair, deep cloudy eyes

    that have already seen the past, present, and future

    all balled up into a small universe

    right here, right now

    in this courtroom

    Courtroom

    I know the courtroom ain’t

    the set of a music video, ain’t

    Coachella or the BET Awards, ain’t

    MTV, VH1, or the Grammys

    But still

    there’s an audience

    of fans, experts, and judges

    Eyes watching through filtered screens

    seeing every lie, reading every made-up word

    like a black hoodie counts as a mask

    like some shit I do with my fingers

    counts as gang signs

    like a few fights counts as uncontrollable rage

    like failing three classes

    counts as being dumb as fuck

    like everything that I am, that I’ve ever been

    counts as being

    guilty

    Character Witness

    We’re in the courtroom

    to hear the jury’s verdict

    after only a few hours of

    deliberation

    and Ms. Rinaldi, my art teacher

    was a character witness

    It was the first time

    she saw me

    in a suit and tie

    like the one I was supposed to wear

    to the art opening at the museum

    Or the one I was supposed to wear

    to my first solo show in the school’s gym

    The suit I was supposed to wear

    to prom, to my cousin’s graduation

    to mosque with Umi

    is the suit I wear to my first trial

    It’s as if this event in my life

    was something that was

    supposed to happen all along

    Gray Suit

    Umi told me to wear a gray suit

    becauseoptics

    But that gray didn’t make me any less black

    My white lawyer didn’t make me any less black

    And words can paint black-and-white pictures, too

    Maybe ideas have their own eyes

    separating black from white as if the world

    is some old, old TV show

    Maybe ideas segregate like in the days of

    Dr. King, and no matter how many marches

    or Twitter hashtags or Justice for So-and-So

    our mind’s eyes and our eyes’ minds

    see the world as they want to

    Everything already illustrated

    in black and white

    Anger Management

    Did you ever see Amal get angry?

    the prosecutor asked Ms. Rinaldi

    It’s the most important question in my trial

    Am I angryAm I violentAm I—

    Objection, Clyde said

    Sustained, the judge said

    Did Amal ever display emotions that were—

    Yes, Ms. Rinaldi said

    That’s why I work so hard with Amal

    To channel his anger into his art

    And I know, I know

    that right then and there

    she didn’t even have to look my way

    because she won’t see me

    She’s never seen me

    She only sees my paintings and drawings

    as if me and what I create

    are two different worlds

    There’s a stone in my throat

    and a brick on my chest

    White Space

    In art class

    Ms. Rinaldi had said that

    the white space on the page

    is also part of our illustration

    The white space on the page

    also tells a story, is part of the big picture

    I didn’t get what she was saying at first

    Then she showed us this painting

    An optical illusion, she called it

    There was a white face

    with eyes, a nose, and a mouth

    against a black background

    But when I looked sideways

    or backward or upside down

    there was a black face with

    eyes, nose, and a mouth

    against a white background

    And it was wild how my eyes

    played tricks on me like that

    but it was my mind that

    made sense of it all

    It’s wild how our minds

    can play tricks on us like that

    White Space II

    There were more witnesses

    from East Hills

    than from my side of the hood

    of the tracks

    of the border

    of that invisible line

    we weren’t supposed to cross

    The couple who just moved in with the baby

    who said

    We tried so hard to build community

    The kindergarten teacher who said

    I’ve always been good to those

    neighborhood kids

    And the college kid who

    recorded the whole thing

    and said

    I knew something was gonna go down

    so I just picked up my phone

    To call the police? Clyde asked

    Nah, for social, the kid said

    It was like a mob

    an ambush

    So I went live

    And no, I’ve never seen them before

    Then when Clyde asked

    How long have you been in the neighborhood?

    Just the weekend, visiting friends

    the college kid said

    I didn’t think it would blow up like this

    That video made you pretty famous, huh?

    The college kid laughed

    and all I wanted to do was

    drag him off that witness stand

    But that would’ve looked bad

    Really bad

    The Thinker

    I replay everybody’s testimonies

    in my head

    like a song on loop

    Their words and what they thought

    to be their truth

    were like a scalpel

    shaping me into

    the monster

    they want me to be

    I’m supposed to be

    like a statue

    in this courtroom

    Chiseled bronze

    perfectly frozen in time

    like some god

    stripped of his power

    or a fallen angel

    cast into this hell

    And every lie

    they say about me

    every stone

    they throw at me

    is supposed to bounce off

    like tiny pellets

    Here I have to be bulletproof

    Two Mouths

    What happens if I’m found guilty? I ask Clyde

    before the deliberation

    He taps his pen on his yellow notepad

    as if beating out the rhythm to some rhyme

    some party anthem for whenfor when

    he wins this case

    And I want so bad

    to grab that pen and notepad

    and draw me a victory

    a whole scene with dancing shapes

    and hard lines turned to joy

    That’s not going to happen, he says

    Umi said English requires two mouths to speak

    and four ears to understand

    Clyde spoke with two mouths

    One for me and one for the court

    Blank Page

    Mr. Clyde Richter, my defense attorney

    is supposed to save my life

    is supposed to create reasonable doubt

    is supposed to let that judge and jury know

    the truth

    But he is part of the white space

    on my page

    where the charcoal and ink

    only graze the edges of his world

    of Ms. Rinaldi’s world

    of Jeremy Mathis’s world

    the white boy whose entire life

    is a whole blank page of

    this sketchbook

    where this story begins

    Black Ink

    So

    I am ink

    He is paper

    I am pencil

    He is notebook

    I am text

    He is screen

    I am paint

    He is canvas

    I am man

    He is boy

    I am criminal

    He is victim

    I am alive

    He is almost dead

    I am black

    He is white

    Face Painting

    Ms. Rinaldi left the courtroom

    after the prosecutor showed pictures

    of Jeremy Mathis’s face after the fight

    In school, she said I had talent, a gift

    She said my lines were soft

    my subjects were tender

    She said I had a lot of beauty

    inside me waiting to bloom

    My art teacher of all people should know

    I could never make a painting

    with the colors of mangled flesh

    of broken bone, of bruised skin

    out of someone’s face

    Movie Star

    The people who know me

    really know me

    are not the ones

    the judge and jury want to hear from

    It’s as if they wanted to hear a story about

    some other kid

    It’s as if they wanted to watch a movie about

    some other kid

    The prosecutor, with his fancy words

    his hard evidence

    wrote the script, directed the scene

    cast just the right actor

    to play this kid from the hood

    who beat up a white kid really bad

    so bad

    that he can’t wake up

    to tell the truth

    Fan Club

    And the truth is

    nothing else matters except this moment

    right now

    when I get to turn around to

    look into Umi’s eyes

    to remind herto remind me

    that she believes me

    And I want Grandma to know that

    I’m goodI’m good

    on the inside

    Uncle Rashon knew what went down

    even before he saw the news

    even before he saw the video

    even before he saw the

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