Ibi Zoboi

Yusef Salaam

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. Perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, and Elizabeth Acevedo. The story that I thought was my life didn't start on the day I was born Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he's seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. "Boys just being boys" 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, Amal's bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn't 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.

Unti Teen - ABB

Lindsay

like a few fights counts as uncontrollable rage

like everything that I am, that I’ve ever been

with her eyes blindfolded, peeking through slits

Amal Shahid to the left    Jeremy Mathis to the right

is                                is America

   the only thing I can trust     right now

it’s not a classroom, it’s a cell block

it’s not a restroom, it’s open stalls and showers

it’s not a lunchroom, it’s the mess hall

it’s not friends, it’s inmates, felons, and delinquents

Unti Teen - ABB quotes

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