Finding the meaning of my name became a guiding light for me. The Central Park Five then became the Exonerated Five: Korey Wise, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, and Yusef Salaam. She never got that interview with Salaam, but after class, ended up walking nearly 60 NYC blocks with him, talking about his experiences — and even talking about Donald Trump. Things were bad, then, but we're better now.”. Pride by Ibi Zoboi Book Review. Photo of Dr. Yusef Salaam: Staci Nurse. You vote it. One of things I asked you is whether or not you were OK with me as a woman telling this story and do you remember what you told me?”, “Absolutely,” Yusef said. The Exonerated Five’s story seemed to fade into the ether of American racial trauma and injustices; they wouldn’t make headlines again until 2012, when filmmaker Ken Burns released the documentary The Central Park Five, and 2019, when Ava DuVernay’s miniseries When They See Us hit Netflix and was watched by over 23 million viewers within the first month of its release. His group was mistaken for another group going to a birthday party of a girl one of the white boys had a relationship with. The secondary and tertiary stories are all the issues surrounding this child. IZ: I'm going to say the opposite of that. Good Life Project. This book is vibrant and emotional and so, so important. Life Style & Beauty Food & Drink Parenting Travel Finds Wellness Relationships Money Home & Living Work/Life. Sometimes you're rendered silent, because you're shocked. Ibi Zoboi’s second entry in the young adult genre Pride, is a remix of Pride and Prejudice and also a National Book Award Finalist. Ibi Zoboi was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and holds an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. YS: My story is the gift that keeps on giving. This was in the middle of conversations about YA novels and social justice issues, and I was just like, “You have a story. It was eye opening for [my teens] to realize, oh, wow, [the Central Park Five jogger case] happened to these young men when they were teenagers and they're still alive to tell the story. And I'm like, whoa. “Art is a completely liberating meditative process,” he said in the chat. You paint it. IZ: I would remind young people that they're already making art. YS: For me, I have been going through a process of healing by telling my story. IZ: It was easier to work through [Punching the Air than my other novels] because I had Yusef to make sense of it all. Authors Ibi Zoboi and Dr. Yusef Salaam (of the Exonerated Five) joined forces to bring forth their impactful novel, Punching the Air.I had the pleasure of reading and reviewing the book earlier this month and can easily say it’s been one of the best that I’ve read thus far in 2020.. Punching the Air follows Amal Shahid, a teenager who has always been an artist and a poet. Her novel American Street was a National Book Award finalist and a New York Times Notable Book. Or Prospect Lefferts…” Sign up for the Teen Vogue daily email. This is, first and foremost, a guidebook for the Amals in the world. Ibi Zoboi Book for an event. The authors said in the chat that they plan to do a book tour, but no news yet on if it will be in-person or virtual. I was able to transcribe that wisdom into poetry, so it was not as hard as it was probably to read, for me, because I knew what I was trying to say. Back in the day, within Hip-Hop culture, we were rapping, we dressed the part — that was art-making. “This Bushwick-set, contemporary retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice tackles gentrification, Blackness, and romance with honesty, humor, and heart. All of those stories were part of my subconscious and part of my political awareness growing up in New York City. Ibi Zoboi. Healing by sharing and helping others find a way. Young people are making art every single day and [Amal’s story] is to define what art means. American Street Ibi Zoboi. Open to everyone (teachers, students, homeschoolers, readers of all ages) with option to donate to the Prison Book Program. The group was exonerated in 2002 after the identity of the real rapist was discovered. This is the conversation that's part of prison abolition movements: [What do we understand about] how society can fail children [to the point] where they go down the wrong path, or they self harm or harm others? But in his cell, in the mess hall, when he's dealing with the other brothers in there, he's not thinking about the prison industrial complex — he's thinking about his humanity and his boyhood. But when you think about the design of God, you often don't understand [it]. See More. Never stop talking it.”. Set in Harlem during the summer of 1984, Ebony-Grace Norfleet is a young, aspiring space captain. Get started. You’ve both stated that you feel as though art is one of the best outlets that a young person can have for anything that they are going through. Since this incident occurred before social media took off, Ibi said we tend to have a collective amnesia about racially charged events. What would you say to young people on the inside — and on the outside — who believe that art is a practice that one needs to have a natural affinity or gift for? It puts me back together. Though they didn’t go into detail about the specific crime that leads Amal to trouble, the co-authors said the crime is inspired by their upbringings in segregated 1980s New York. Author of AMERICAN STREET (Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins, Winter 2017) ‘The Sun Is Also a Star’ Sees Mediocre Reviews: Is Multicultural YA Viable on Silver Screen? We all need justice for Breonna Taylor. TV: James Baldwin once said: “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.” Amal grapples with his own rage throughout the novel and uses art as his medium for change. Salaam, she learned that day, was a member of the Central Park Five—one of the five teenagers of color who, in 1989, were wrongfully sentenced to prison following a media scandal. At the time, Salaam had not yet been exonerated. Ibi Zoboi. Why are you here? From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. I'm going to hug up on my children.” And that is not selfish, as a Black person, as a child of color, as a child right now in this country. In their new novel-in-verse Punching the Air, Dr. Yusef Salaam (one of the Exonerated Five) and author Ibi Zoboi team up to tell a story about “holding on to hope with your teeth,” Salaam tells Teen Vogue. Chapters 7-12. And the beauty of it is when you finish coming out of the meditation and see what you’ve created, it’s like, ‘Wow.'”. We need those reflective artists to pay attention to all the details. The novel is a beautiful reckoning for the world of YA literature, lending representation and humanization to incarcerated youths, the Muslim faith, and young Black kids who find power in powerless situations. I inhaled this book. What happens when your life is abruptly shifted had to be explored; how you have to continue to hold on to hope with the molars of your teeth, hence the name of the character Amal, which means hope [in Arabic]. [Yusef’s story] was part of the movement that I was trying to understand as a college student. The members of the Central Park Five were children, the youngest member was in middle school when this happened to them. While in jail, Yusef found ways to create art and poetry with the tools he could find like a pin in his clothes. “When you get the opportunity to delve into it and be free with it, you don’t really know where it’s going to go. How did writing this book influence your mental and emotional health? She also wrote the YA novel Pride, a Pride and Prejudice remix, and the middle grade novel My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich. I'm going to speak up in my own way. Download Save. So in that rage, we have to understand that we are still under the condition of white supremacy, of white male dominance, and underneath that, how do we be? He's doodling, he's thinking about art in a different way. We don't all need to be the town criers. He was a West African immigrant who was shot by police 41 times. To revisit this article, select My⁠ ⁠Account, then View saved stories. To be able to give voice to self is to liberate self. These boys, ages 14 to 16, who would be labeled the “Central Park Five” in the tidal wave of racist press coverage of the case, would ultimately spend between six and 13 years in prison for a crime they did not commit. TV: Within Amal’s story, you manage to bridge webs of racial violence from the past and the present, which can be quite painful to write about. The young person’s guide to conquering (and saving) the world. And where do you get those ideas? Dr. Yusef Salaam: I'm able to tell this story, give my ideas, give my experiences, and Ibi has been able to take it where it needs to be. 140 Likes, 4 Comments - IBI ZOBOI (@ibizoboi) on Instagram: “Rainy Saturday morning in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Flatbush. Weekly book ... club for # PunchingtheAir begins this Wednesday. I want to be part of this movement, too. Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam Originally published: 1 September 2020 Author: Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam Published by: HarperCollins Children's Books Genre: Verse Length: 400 pages Reading dates: 24-27 Nov 2020 The story that I thoughtwas my lifedidn’t start on the dayI was born Amal Shahid has always been an artist… I like to say that I'm the scribe and Yusef is the philosopher. They became known as the Exonerated Five after filmmaker Ava DuVernay brought their story to Netflix last year in When They See Us. TV: What do you want the legacy of Amal's story to be? And this is about alchemy, how you become your own alchemist. But Yusef lived it. Joy can be a catalyst for change, because you want to protect it. I use her words all the time because, for me, it was a catalyst. He’s studying all of these classical artists, and he doesn't realize that he is already making art. I truly believe that the Central Park jogger case didn't happen to me, but it happened for me. I'm going to say JOY… to experience it, to know what it is, is to protect it fiercely. You march it. Last updated on August 4, 2020 . They know slavery, maybe Reconstruction, they know the lynching era, Civil Rights, and because they went to progressive schools, they studied the Black Power movement. I've been watching you. So while writing Amal, I can see the other side for him. All the thoughts and opinions in this post are mine and in no way influenced by Amazon. And now, it's part of the movement that young people are experiencing, that the whole country, the whole world is experiencing. Gush review of Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam. Learn how your comment data is processed. You dance it. Books by Ibi Zoboi. Ibi Zoboi added a new photo. To be able to take, transform, repurpose… is important. All rights reserved. This combination photo shows the cover of "Punching the Air" by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam, left, and Salaam at the ACLU SoCal's 25th Annual Luncheon in Los Angeles on June 7, 2019. Lost my audio & Yusef came through w/ a spot-on answer. Ibi and Yusef said they were inspired by the 1989 murder of Yusuf Hawkins, a black teen, who was killed by a white teen mob in the predominantly white section of Bensonhurst in Brooklyn after inquiring about a car for sale with his friends. In 2002, after the young men spent years behind bars their sentences were overturned, and they were fully exonerated. This [story] is first and foremost, about the child. Teen Vogue sat down with the authors to discuss Punching the Air, their novel that is being called “required reading for all ages.”. What other emotions do you feel are necessary for revolution? Amal is going through a hard thing, but I knew that we were giving him a tool, an arsenal of tools, as you like to say Yusef, to be able to cope. Photo of Ibi Zoboi: Joseph Zoboi, 23 million viewers within the first month of its release, middle of conversations about YA novels and social justice issues. National Book Award-finalist Ibi Zoboi makes her middle-grade debut with an unforgettable character: Ebony-Grace Norfleet, the sci-fi-obsessed granddaughter of one of the first black engineers to integrate NASA. Ibi Zoboi: There was a lot of confusion at that time because you kind of knew that those boys were innocent.