Punching the Air

Product Information

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. Amal is an artist, a poet, a young man, and his journey is heartbreaking and hopeful. Being in his head was captivating.

Goldstein, Susannah; Hershberger, Katy; Knapp, Maggie; Leffel, Ashley; Riemer, Carla (2020-11-23). "Best Young Adult Books 2020 | SLJ Best Books". School Library Journal . Retrieved 2022-01-22. If you are looking to explore this more, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption is a must-read. For a look at the historical context of this issue, I also suggest reading Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You (or Kendi's longer, more in-depth version: Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America). 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. 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] 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.I was a bit worried when I saw that the entire book was told in verses because it can be either a hit or miss for me. I cannot begin to tell you how each of these verse punches you in the gut again and leave you feeling helpless about the injustice faced by Alaam and real-life imprisoned people. The writing was raw, layered, beautiful, honest, angering, hopeful, hopeless and so many other different emotions. 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. 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. 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 ] 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.

Rather than succumbing to rage and despondency, Amal uses his art to save himself. To make sense of this senseless world and the life he has been given.

Punching the Air is a young adult novel-in-verse by Ibi Zoboi and Dr. Yusef Salaam, published September 1, 2020 by Balzer + Bray. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Courtney, Pentland (2021-03-01). "Punching the Air". School Library Journal . Retrieved 2022-01-22. 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.