Loosely based on Yusef Salaam's experience as part of the (now) Exonerated Five, Punching the Air also draws inspiration from other stories of racial injustice like the Jena Six and the Scottsboro Boys. This novel in verse has a lyrical cadence that is both relevant to the current political climate and is beautifully devastating in how it addresses the unfairness of the criminal justice system. Zoboi's verse uses powerful, and often simple, language to draw the reader in and leaves them decrying the racial injustice that still exists in both the justice and prison systems.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

There is as much beauty as there is pain in this story. As Amal struggles to come to terms with what has happened, we learn about what lead to the choices he made. Reading this was almost as hard as watching DuVernay’s When They See Us because of the injustice on top of injustice.

It’s a great reminder for teachers to decolonize our classrooms and curriculums.

This is a powerful, moving story about the school to prison pipeline. It was a hard read, content-wise, but an important one. The poetry itself is astounding, and the story of finding hope, purpose, and a voice even when the world is trying to box you in is awe-inspiring. I cannot wait to see PUNCHING THE AIR spread its wings and fly. It's truly a tour de force for our times.

This will be on several award lists and it's deserved.

Issues I Had With This Book:
* My only "issue" was that I thought the comparisons of the prison system and slavery were done already and the authors didn't have anything different to say. I feel like that is more of a me problem and if you haven't read that metaphor before than it's new to you.

What I Liked About This Book:
* The Chapter Headings-Some of the chapters displayed growth and progression of events and I liked this strategy. I've never seen it before and I found myself flipping back and forth to find the connections.
* Amal's Situation-I don't want to say too much because I want you to discover it as you read it but I liked the pacing of Amal's situation and that's all I'll say.
* Amal's Support System
* The Ending
* The Cover and Title

Overall
I don't want to say too much because I think it's important for the reader to discover all the things. I thought is was very well written and quite honest about how young Black teens are PERCEIVED. If you are a teacher, please pay attention to the Ms. Rinaldi character.

I didn't give it a higher score because of the one dislike and I usually compare books to their contemporaries. I don't read a lot of books in verse about discrimination so the only book I could compare it to was Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds. I gave that a 4.5 and I liked that one more because it was more ambiguous than Punching. Reynolds really left the reader to figure out most of the novel which is the type of writing I like. Punching doesn't do that; it sort of lays it all out for you. There is nothing wrong with that but it's not my personal favorite; I prefer books to be highly metaphorical. Because of that, I couldn't rate it higher but I can certainly see lots of 5 stars for this book.

With that being said, this is a great book for your teen or adult book club. There's lots to discuss and learn. It's very approachable for a reluctant reader while being very critical for advanced readers.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.

What a beautiful, important book. Adults should read this too. This book is about a young black boy who has been arrested for a crime he did not commit, and it is written in amazing lyrical verse. One of the “Central Park Five” had a hand in writing this book. I think it will be a must-read anti-racism title for years to come.

This book punched me in the heart! It is such a needed book and the verse is so beautiful and amazing! I have read a lot of timely books lately and they all are sticking with me. I hope that one day we can all make a change.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC!

I am so grateful to have received an e-arc from NetGalley. This book broke my heart and opened my eyes. It was one I wanted to never put down but never wanted it to end. Amal’s voice reminded me of some of my former students and how they felt defeated and boxed in at the age of 10. This is a must read. Thank you to Ibi Zoboi and Dr. Yusef Salaam; this was sheer perfection.

I read this book in one sitting, I could not put it down. This book is written completely in verse, which will make it an easy and engaging read for young people. The prose contributed to the stream of consciousness like flow of Amal's story. Amal is a high school student who has been falsely convicted of a crime and is sent to juvenile detention while his lawyer and family on the outside fight for him. The book moves seamlessly between his outer world experiences and his consciousness as well as time. We shift between Amal's life before and leading up to the incident that landed him in custody and Amal's time in juvenile detention trying to make sense of his new reality. Zoboi and Salaam use the space on the page to further draw the reader into Amal's mind through word play and shape poetry. Punching the Air was a beautiful, heartbreaking, and timely read that illuminates a criminal system that has continued to disproportionately target Black and brown students, thirty years after Yusef Salaam and the Exonerated Five had the same experience. I highly recommend this book for students and adults alike as it illuminates the impacts of gentrification, respectability politics in the classroom and the transcendence of art for young people. This is absolutely a book to look out for this year.

This was so fantastic. I'm never quite sure if I'll enjoy prose oriented fiction like this, but it was great. Very timely story that I think YA readers will really enjoy. At first I had mixed feelings about the way the story ends. It feels like it just cuts off, but I can appreciate that the story is about the journey and the fact that this happens. Very much enjoyed.

"Maybe ideas segregate like in the days or
Dr. King and no matter how many marches
or Twitter hastags or Just for So-and-So

our mind's eyes and our eyes' minds
see the world as they want to
Everything already illustrated
in black and white"

POWERFUL.

This is a book that should be required reading in schools -- but won't be, for exactly the reasons why it should be.

I will admit -- this book took me a while to get into, but that is 100% my personal preference for prose over verse. It's a quick read, partly because of the verse, and partly because Zoboi and Salaam draw you into Amal's story and don't let you go. While it is partly inspired by Salaam's own experiences with wrongful conviction and imprisonment, Amal's story is fictional, but no less powerful in the commentary it offers on the criminal justice system, prison culture, and racial prejudice.

I was reminded, at times, of Felix Ever After -- both stories deal with BIPOC protagonists who are talented artists. The similarities stop there, as FEA is a hopeful, optimistic, trans love story, whereas PtA has a wildly different tone. I don't mean to draw comparisons between the two -- just that the connection got me thinking about the different paths lives can take.

For me, the most powerful moments of the book were the parallels between education and incarceration -- between school and prison. Zoboi and Salaam highlight the institutional biases at work -- especially through the adults, with Mrs. Rinaldi having a counterpart in Tattoo and a foil in Imani -- but also the power of the arts to heal and provide hope. The commentary applied to art history -- did only dead white man paint? -- is equally applicable to literature, and I thought Zoboi and Salaam's choice to have Amal be an artist who broke the rules and pushed the boundaries was (not to overuse the word) a powerful one.

Final thought: there were times when I found myself getting irritated and annoyed by Amal.
--Sidebar--
Maybe this was an intentional decision by Zoboi and Salaam. I can't know, unless they explicitly say so. But, yes, maybe they made him a flawed character on purpose -- to make him human. But what matters more is that Zoboi and Salaam were most certainly not writing with *my* feelings in mind. I don't think they care if I was uncomfortable or irritated while reading -- in fact, that might even have been a goal of theirs. I would like to hope that I am not so self-centered or privileged as to believe that this story -- this story about a young black boy whose future was irrevocably changed by one night -- was written with my thoughts and feelings in mind.
So this next bit is for readers like me:
--End Sidebar--
Check yourself. Use this as a moment to interrogate your reactions:
Hey. Why are you annoyed with him right now?
Well, he's skipping school.
Okay, but *why* do you find that annoying?
Well, it's *school* and that's disrespecting the teacher. [Slight bias, as I am also a teacher.]
What teacher?
Rinaldi---oh, the awful woman who's teaching a whitewashed subject, shutting down critical interrogation based on points of connection between text-and-audience, and just generally treating him different because he doesn't look like the other "AP kids." Oh, yep. Not a great look on me, there."

Again, I don't think Zoboi and Salaam wrote this book with the sole purpose of giving white people a chance to check their privilege. I do think that they wanted to give voice to the (typically) voiceless -- as Amal is constantly silenced, either through his art being erased, through being told to stop his rapping as juvie isn't a "music video," through poetry/art having to be "earned" or through the system that prioritizes comatose Jeremy Mathis' account over his own -- and highlight the systemic injustices at work.

But--the great thing about art (as this book shows) is that we each decode our own meaning. And you can recognize the dominant message Zoboi and Salaam wanted you to and you can use this as a teaching moment for yourself. They're not exclusive.

Based on Yusef Salaam’s own experience as one of the Central Park Five and ultimately the Exonerated Five, this is a powerful #ownvoices, diverse book that everyone should read. Verse novels are extremely popular in my school library. I predict that this one will be a favorite. Punching the Air follows Amal as he is wrongfully accused of a crime. His experience with the police, going to court, landing in jail, and being exonerated are all too common for a young Black man. This book reflects white privilege and the need for teachers to learn how to teach their BIPOC students. I will need multiple copies of this title as I share them with the high school English department and the middle school LA teachers. This unforgettable book is a must read.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Punching the Air is a lyrical, moving work of literature written in verse about the injustices of our criminal system. When black art student, Amal, is involved in an altercation in a white gentrified neighborhood, he is quickly arrested and his case put to trial. As he battles desperation, depression, and blatant racism and abuse of power in the juvenile justice system, his only hope is that the boy who was beaten will awaken and tell the truth about what really happened.

This is a story about finding healing through art and allowing oneself permission to be vulnerable and to have hope. It holds a mirror to the failures of the criminal justice system and iniquities of those with privilege and power and those without. It is a cry for prison reform, particularly as it relates to youth, and serves as a reminder to continue to take action in the ongoing fight for social justice. It is a beautiful book that shouldn't be missed.

Advanced copy provided courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This poignant novel in verse is not one I will quickly forget. For as Amal punched the air, reading his story surely punched me in the heart. And my heart broke, because I know this story is not just a story. This is the every day lives of our beloved black children. And until we stop the injustices surrounding their lives, stories like Amal’s will continue to happen day in and day out. This is a must read for middle school and high school students and teachers. It is an absolute must purchase for libraries. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to be an early reader.

Punching the Air is a superb contemporary YA novel told in verse. It follows Amal, a Black Muslim teen boy who is wrongly convicted of a violent crime and imprisoned. Written with Yusef Salaam, this is Ibi Zoboi's strongest work yet. Amal's story and voice felt so real and the verse format served the narrative perfectly.

This book is both beautiful and devastating as it follows Amal's conviction and imprisonment in the aftermath of a fight that results in a white teen in a coma. Amal is an artist and his passion for painting and writing is an integral part of his identity, as well as his survival while in prison. I loved that Punching the Air touches on art as expression, trauma, family, identity, mentorship, friendship, and prison abolition. One of the elements of this story that jumped out to me the most was Amal's relationship with his mother, whom he calls Umi. You could truly feel the tender, deep ties between them even as they are apart.

Punching the Air is an incredible read that I will be recommending again and again. The blurb promised it'd be perfect for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo, Walter Dean Meyers, and Jason Reynolds--and I wholeheartedly agree with that! I've enjoyed Ibi Zoboi's previous books, but this one blew me away. I will absolutely be purchasing a copy for my library and recommending it to teen readers; librarians and educators serving middle and high school students should be sure to have a copy in their collections.

I am always looking to expand my verse book collection for my students, and this one is great! As a teacher, it made me think about how I approach different students and the biases I bring into the classroom. It is such a relevant message right now. Amal's story was heartbreaking, and his emotions were raw and real. There were so many issues to think about and unpack with this one. Many of my students are sheltered from this world, and this story can help bring down walls.

This powerful book will make your insides ache. Too many Amals are out there, stuck in the system when they don’t belong there. Everyone needs to read this book.

Powerful story told in verse. This tells the story of Amal, a teenager who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and goes to jail/juvenile detention for it. Because, as we all know, young black men are oten guilty before proven to be innocent. A very emotional read that I know my students will love. A great story for fans of The Hate You Give, All American Boys, and Ghost Boys.

Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam is a powerful novel in verse about Amal. Amal is a teenager who has been accused of a crime he didn't commit. It follows him throughout the process of the trial and beyond, but it also examines the school to prison pipeline, and how schools can sometimes be a barrier for black and brown students. This is an important read for teachers and parents as well as students! I found myself saving many of the powerful poems to go back to later or to show to my students throughout the year.

I requested an advanced copy of this book mainly because it was written by one of the Exonerated Five, Yusef Salaam. If ever there was an expert in how this countries judicial system doesn't work the way we want it, it's Yusef and his friends. This is a book that will stick with you long after you've finished reading it. #netgalley #punchingtheair

How is it that a book as devastating and heartbreaking as this one is both beautiful and hopeful at the same time?

Well, Ibi Zoboi has done it again and this time with activist Yusef Salaam, one of the "Exonerated Five" from the "Central Park Jogger Case." If you haven't heard of either of those -- do you watch anything popular on Netflix?!-- then go Google it and educate yourself prior to reading this one.

This story, told in verse narrative poetry, tells the story of 15 year old Amal who is convicted to juvie for a crime he did not commit. Through these beautiful and lyrical poems, Zoboi and Salaam capture exact feelings that illustrate exactly how we fail so many Black and Latino children and, mostly, create a pipeline to prison for these kids.

Teachers and parents, I highly recommend this book for use in your curriculum. The poems can be deep at times and they can help promote race discussions and conversations. Age-wise: I could see this being read with students beginning at 6th grade but it feels more like a young adult genre book versus a middle grade level book. It reads more mature and I appreciate how Zoboi has done this.

This novel in verse is STUNNING!!! The imagery that is portrayed really sucks you in. I enjoy novels in verse because they move quickly. Sometimes it’s nice to not get bogged down in all the tiny details. The way this was written, nothing was left out. I felt the pain, anguish, frustration and hope. I saw it all. The cell. The murals, the mess hall, solitary. It was so vivid and well written! Can’t wait to get it in the hands of students!!