Punching the Air

New York TimesandUSA Todaybestseller * Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor * Walter Award Winner * Goodreads Finalist for Best Teen Book of the Year *TimeMagazine Best Book of the Year *Publishers WeeklyBest Book of the Year *Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year*School Library JournalBest Book of the Year *KirkusBest Book of the Year*New York Public Library Best Book of the YearFrom 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. A must-read for fans of Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, and Elizabeth Acevedo.The story that I thoughtwas my lifedidnt start on the dayI was bornAmal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, because of a biased system hes 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 thinkwill be my lifestarts todaySuddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal is convicted of a crime he didnt 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.