Book Stats 
Stars: Five Stars
Start Date: 8/21/20 
Ending Date:  8/24/20
Genre:  YA, Verse, Own Voice, Race Issues
Form: Audiobook Arc
Page Count: 400
Publishing Date: September 1st 2020
Point of View: 1st Person Verse
Setting: New York City

Received an Audiobook arc from publisher via Netgalley  in exchange for an honest review. You can read it on my blog!

Punching the air is about a 16 year old name Amal Shhaid who was convicted of a crime that he did not commit. Who was sent to a Juvenile Detention Center as his sentence for an unknown amount of time. Amal is a talented Muslim black boy who loves to read, write poems, skate, and who also like to draw and paint. A talented kid who was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. In which one mistake could ruin a promising future before it begins.

This book is such a sucker punch to the gut right now in the middle of 2020. A year where racial injustice has been in full view thanks to a pandemic which pulled back the curtain. In a time that Black Lives Matter movement is finally being seen a recognized as movement as synonymous as the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s. It talks about how messed up the judicial and prison system is when comes to Blacks especially Black Men and other People of color.  How essentially the prison system is pretty much a more legal form of Slavery in the United States since Slavery was abolished after the Civil War.  It’s also shows how a support system like Amal had with had family can be so important to keep a soul from not breaking in a system that is trying to crush a soul.

Thanks to me reading Pride a couple years back this was not my first time being enthralled by Mrs. Zoboi’s words but in PTA, she took it to another level with it being written in verse. It was so deep and lyrical as the narrator make her words comes to life. The words of a 16 year old boy who trying to keep the hope in a situation that where becoming hopeless can happen so quick because of the color of your skin.  The narrator who was nothing but short of amazing was able to capture the spirit of Amal as he was trying to navigate in his situation where staying alive is pretty much the biggest prize.  Mrs.Zoboi along with  Yusef Salaam captured that sprit very well.  I don’t know to much about the Central Park Five since I was young when it happen but I still need to more research about the five Men to complete understand their horrid ordeal.

It’s really funny how racism works.

Black Men get call boy to make them feel inferior.

Black Boys get called Men to in the court of law in order from them to feel inferior in the court of law. To justify them being thrown the book at them.  Also to get killed for no reason what so ever.

When will this cycle ever end?

#BLM


Tanya