Title: Punching the Air
Description: 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.
source: https://www.harpercollins.ca/9780062996503/punching-the-air/
Subjects: YOUNG ADULT FICTION, Social Themes, Prejudice & Racism, Law & Crime, violence, Poetry, Suspense, Young Adult Literature, nyt:young-adult-hardcover=2020-09-20, New York Times bestseller, Young adult fiction, law & crime, Young adult fiction, social themes, prejudice & racism, Young adult fiction, novels in verse, African Americans, Juvenile fiction, Artists, False imprisonment, African American teenage boys, Teenage artists, Judicial error, Male prisoners, Discrimination in criminal justice administration, Administration of Criminal justice, Justice, Racism, Fiction, Teenage boys, YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Social Themes / Prejudice & Racism, YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Law & Crime, YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Novels in Verse, African American teenagers, Errors, Discrimination in administration of criminal justice, Teenagers