Punching the Air
Description
The story that I thought
was my life
didnât start on the day
I was born
Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, heâs seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. âBoys just being boysâ 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, Amalâs bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didnât 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/