Punching the Air

Product Information

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

Best Fiction for Young Adults". Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). 2021-01-14 . Retrieved 2022-01-22. I love the family dynamic representation the most. Umi is one such great mother. A strong woman. It's her character (though the book isn't told from her perspective) that kept me glued till the end.Saunders, Barbara (2020-09-18). "Punching the Air - Book Review". Common Sense Media . Retrieved 2022-01-22. 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. 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.

I absolutely loved Punching the Air. I felt so much during this book. I felt all the injustice for Amal. The writing style made me become instantly attached to Amal. Amal go through all the injustices his faced in juvie and leading up to then as well as childhood made me so sad. In general, yes, teachers! Can you be less cranky and not make your classes feel like someone else has punished you to do your job and in turn shove that hatred towards your students? I mean both parties hate classes because of this. And not all students are the same. Some are introverts and some can act well to get credits. It's your job to see into that and make out the difference yourselves. 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? 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.Courtney, Pentland (2021-03-01). "Punching the Air". School Library Journal . Retrieved 2022-01-22. The highlight for me turned out to be the schooling system for such 'troublesome' kids while being behind the bars. a b Pineda, Dorany (2021-04-17). "Winners of the 2020 L.A. Times Book Prizes announced". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2022-01-22.

Kindregan, Emily (Winter 2020). "Punching the Air". The School Librarian. 68 (4): 248 – via ProQuest.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.

What a beautiful, heart-wrenching, infuriating but hopeful journey. The story is about a teenage Alam who went against his gut instinct ended up in a situation where he made one wrong move that changed the course of his entire life. While this is not the story about Yusef Salaam, a prison abolitionist and one of the Exonerated Five, it does draw on some things that he experienced when he was wrongfully imprisoned.We have here a child who was accused, tried and convicted as if he was an adult. Yet his white counterpart was allowed to retain his status as a child. 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. amal is a creative kid, and while incarcerated, self-expression through art is one of the only joys he is permitted. when that is taken from him, all that's left to do is read and study. We have here a child that’s bearing the burden that comes with having a skin colour he had no choice in choosing.