''Punching the Air'' is a

young adult A young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages of human development significantly influencing the definition of ...

novel-in-verse by Ibi Zoboi and Dr. Yusef Salaam, published September 1, 2020 by

Balzer + Bray HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Co ...

. The book is a ''New York Times'' best seller and

Junior Library Guild Junior Library Guild, formerly the Junior Literary Guild, is a commercial book club devoted to juvenile literature. It was created in 1929 as one of the enterprises of the Literary Guild, an adult book club created in 1927 by Samuel W. Craig and H ...

book. It has also won the

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Since 1980, the ''Los Angeles Times'' has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Prizes currently have nine categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), history, mystery/thriller ...

for Young Adult Literature and the Walter Dean Myers Award.

Background

Zoboi and Salaam met at Hunter College in 1999, two years before Salaam was exonerated for allegedly assaulting and raping a woman in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...

. Although ''Punching the Air'' is not based on Salaam's experience of

racial profiling Racial profiling or ethnic profiling is the act of suspecting, targeting or discriminating against a person on the basis of their ethnicity, religion or nationality, rather than on individual suspicion or available evidence. Racial profiling involv ...

, “Amal’s character is inspired by him as an artist and as an incarcerated teen who had the support of his family, read lots of books, and made art to keep his mind free.” 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."

Reception

''Punching the Air'' is a ''New York Times'' best seller and

book. The book received starred reviews from ''

Booklist ''Booklist'' is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. ''Booklist''s primary audience consists of libraries, educators, and booksellers. The magazine is av ...

'', ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'', '' Kirkus Reviews'', ''

Shelf Awareness Shelf Awareness is an American publishing company that produces two electronic publications/newsletters focused on bookselling, books and book reviews. Overview With offices in Seattle, Washington, and Montclair, New Jersey, ''Shelf Awareness' ...

'', and ''

School Library Journal ''School Library Journal'' (''SLJ'') is an American monthly magazine containing reviews and other articles for school librarians, media specialists, and public librarians who work with young people. Articles cover a wide variety of topics, with ...

'', as well as positive reviews from

Common Sense Media Common Sense Media (CSM) is an organization that reviews and provides ratings for media and technology with the goal of providing information on their suitability for children.

, ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...

'', ''

The School Librarian The School Library Association (SLA) is an independent organization in the United Kingdom which promotes libraries and literacy in schools. The SLA was founded in 1937 and is based at Kembrey Park in north-eastern Swindon. It is a charity registe ...

'', ''

The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books ''The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books'' is an academic journal established in 1945 by Frances E. Henne (Graduate Library School, University of Chicago).Wedgeworth, Robert. ''World Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services''. Ch ...

'', and ''

The Horn Book ''The Horn Book Magazine'', founded in Boston in 1924, is the oldest bimonthly magazine dedicated to reviewing children's literature. It began as a "suggestive purchase list" prepared by Bertha Mahony Miller and Elinor Whitney Field, proprietres ...

''. ''Booklist'''s Reinhardt Suarez wrote about how Salaam's "experiences lend a visceral gravitas to Zoboi’s pen, and together they capture Amal’s emotional struggles as he grasps for hope despite his circumstances." Suarez also noted that Salaam's experience allowed Zoboi to "accurately depict the justice system as an engine fine-tuned to crush the urban poor and young Black men in particular," ultimately calling the novel " escient and sobering." ''Kirkus'' called the book, "Awardworthy. Soul-stirring. A must-read." In a positive review for ''Booklist,'' Terry Hong complimented the audiobook narrator, Ethan Herrise, for how he "embodies the novel in verse" with "careful, thoughtful precision." ''Kirkus Reviews,

TIME Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'', ''Shelf Awareness'', ''School Library Journal'', the New York Public Library, and ''Publishers Weekly'' named ''Punching the Air'' one of the best young adult books of 2020.

References

{{reflist Balzer + Bray books 2020 children's books American young adult novels 2020 American novels Novels about race and ethnicity Children's books about race and ethnicity Verse novels