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“This book will be Walter Dean Myers’s Monster for a new generation of teens. An important, powerful, and beautiful novel that should be an essential purchase for any library that serves teens.”
—School Library Journal  (Starred Review)

Punching the Air

Written by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam
Published by Balzer + Bray

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.

Primary ISBN: 9780062996480
Available As: Hardcover, Paperback, Audiobook, eBook
Young Adult, Age 14 or older

Community Represented:

Themes: , ,

Setting: United States

Character’s New Arrival/New American Status: Unknown Arrival

Book Creator(s) Connection to the Community Represented: Own Voices/Lived Experience

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