Barbiero, Delfina V. " 'Punching the Air' review: Yusef Salaam of Central Park Five pens moving racial justice story". USA TODAY . Retrieved 2022-01-22. Al-Mateen, Sylvia (2020-06-17). "YA Maximum Shelf: Punching the Air". Shelf Awareness . Retrieved 2022-01-22. 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. I haven't met a kind and wonderful teacher in my life till date. I find teachers in movies and books (nonfiction, memoirs, autobiographies) far more inspirational.

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. Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam is a fantastic book about race. This is one of those books I wish everyone would read. I rate this along with The Hate You Give. 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.Stevenson, Deborah (2020). "Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi". Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. 74 (2): 110. doi: 10.1353/bcc.2020.0724. ISSN 1558-6766. Another is that Punching the Air really explains how the prison system in America is a form of legal slavery-- it is written in the Constitution.

I had never read a novel in verse before this one but I definitely would love to read more in the future! Punching the Air was a powerful novel that is definitely a must-read for everyone. I highly recommend it! Our new online dictionaries for schools provide a safe and appropriate environment for children. And best of all it's ad free, so sign up now and start using at home or in the classroom.

To make a fist and raise then lower it into the air multiple times in appreciation of what you see or hear.

The following quote refers to how Amal's dream to become a poet and artist is snuffed out by the suffocating atmosphere of the prison: This book made my heart hurt. A short story, told in verse, drawing on Yusef Salaam’s experiences and channeled into Amal, a young man wrongly convicted of a crime. Injustice and justice was on the menu here and the use of verse poignantly reverberated the message.

Courtney, Pentland (2021-03-01). "Punching the Air". School Library Journal . Retrieved 2022-01-22. Al-Mateen, Sylvia (2020-06-17). "Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam: Finding Power Within". Shelf Awareness . Retrieved 2022-01-22. There are stories like these that surpass the point of it being just fiction only and encompass the full capacity of what powerful storytelling can do, more than a non-fiction story ever could. he lists the authors he reads: james baldwin, richard wright, toni morrison, octavia butler, ibram x kendi, michelle alexander, ta-nehisi coates. Zoboi and Salaam decided to write the novel in verse to mirror Amal's connection to poetry, as well as to incorporate the concept of hip-hop, which Salaam refers to as "a genre that was created by us for us. It is the language of the people. It is a protest language. It is a way that we codify the more powerful and salient ideas. Poetry can capture a feeling and when it's being read or spoken, it's magnetic." [9] Reception [ edit ]