'From 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. Perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, and Elizabeth Acevedo.
'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.
'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.'
I have to be honest, I've never been a huge fan of poetry, and verse has been something that I enjoy in very small doses, but never really go out of my way to engage with; as such, I was a little unsure how I was going to get on with Punching The Air, a book written in verse. Well, I needn't have been concerned about it, as this book is amazing.
The story follows Amal, a young man who finds himself in a situation going quickly out of his control. Following a fight where a white teen ended up badly beaten Amal is blamed for the event, and must face a legal system set up to see him lose, despite his innocence. Even though the blurb makes it clear that Amal is going to be found guilty, that he's going to be sent to prison I still found these part of the book so tense. The moments leading up to the delivery of the verdict were so heart wrenching, and I wanted Amal to be found innocent so much. I knew what was going to happen, but it still hurt to see that guilty verdict, to see the effect it had on Amal.
It's clear throughout the book the influence that Dr. Salaam had on this book, the amount of insight and real experience he brought to this story, but the moments in the court room was so raw, so powerful, and really hammered home what he himself must have been going through when he lived through this. This became the moment I went from really liking the book and being invested to being absolutely in love with this book.
Other books that try to cover these kinds of subjects can be emotional, they can be powerful, but part of me often thinks that this is an author tapping into emotions and experiences they've not been through themselves, that it's an aprximation of those events. Punching The Air has an author with those first hand experiences. Salaam sat in court, he listened to his name dragged through the mud, his life torn to pieces in front of him; he felt those emotions, and he brings them to this book. I found myself wanting to cry, wanting to rage, there are so many times that reading this book hurt, because this isn't just a fiction. It's reality for so many people.
The book makes a point of highlighting how Amal has his identity distorted during his trial. Amal is a man, whilst the teen who was hurt is a boy; despite them being the same age. Amal talks about how he's seen as a man, fully formed, never having been a child, never been afraid of monsters, never hidden from thunder, because he's a Black man, he has to be aggressive. The book doesn't shy away from the horrible, harsh reality that the US legal system will always, always cast Black people in the role of the aggressor, always paint them as angry and violent, whilst White people will always be misunderstood, in the wrong place, innocent until proven guilty.
It also makes a point that the US prison system is legalised slavery, even quoting from the thirteenth amendment to the constitution, '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.'
I'm sure that there would be some who would say that the book is trying to push a certain point or agenda, and whilst I'm sure it is as who could live through such an unjust system and not want prison reform, there is nothing in this book that isn't true. The constitution does legalise prison slavery. The system does hurt the Black community more, often unjustly. And there are stark differences between how Black and White defendants are treated.
2020 has been a hugely important year for the fight against racism and police corruption in the US. Black Lives Matter protests have taken place across the globe, and are still happening to this day. This is a perfect environment for Punching The Air to be published in, as this topic has never been as loud or in the public eye.
This is a book that is hugely important, that will help to open some people's eyes, and needs to be read. I hope that if you're reading this and are unsure whether to pick up the book you've now made up your mind to do so. I hope that it moves you, that it makes you want to raise awareness, to take action. And I hope that you share it with others. Get your friends to read it, share it with your family, get your libraries to stock it. Black Lives Matter, their voices matter, their stories matter, and this book matters.
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