Punching the Air

Review from School Library Connection Star:

Author Ibi Zoboi uses a courtroom trial and the experience of imprisonment to trigger flashbacks that point out the ambiguity and discrimination in the American juvenile justice system. Told in verse, this title takes the reader into the heart and soul of a well-drawn character, Amal Dawud Shahid, an African American teen on trial for assaulting a white teen from a gentrified section of his neighborhood. Zoboi's co-writer is Yusef Salaam, is one of the Exonerated Five, the boys incorrectly convicted of raping the Central Park jogger in 1989. In the introduction, she states that the Central Park Five, the Jena Six, and the Scottsboro Boys were her inspiration for the book. Realistically, the book ends ambiguously. With sparing but incisive text, Zoboi unfolds Amal's tragedy through his stream of consciousness.  Amal emerges as a complex, sympathetic character. He compares being a prisoner to the shackled Africans captured on the slave ships. He delights in the kindness of an unrequited love who writes him a letter. A talented artist who tries to imitate various African-African painters, Amal reflects on his disappointment with the pre-conceived notions of his high school art teacher. He longs to attend the prison poetry classes, yet he can't check his anger in the face of mistreatment from the wardens and the condescending attitude of the institution's supervisor.