We have picked our final group discussion book of the year, and it is PUNCHING THE AIR by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam! PUNCHING THE AIR was released last week, and we’re all excited to start reading it. We will be posting our discussion on 7 October 2020. We hope to see you all then!
Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam
Balzer & Bray/Harperteen
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, he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. 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’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.
— Cover image and summary via Bookshop.org