Stories for Change: A YA Author Series
This Spring, Berkeley Public Library presents Stories for Change, an event series spotlighting some of today’s most exciting YA authors and stories that celebrate acceptance, understanding, and truth.
Stories for Change Presents Ibi Zoboi’s Punching the Air: From award-winning writer Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusuf Salaam - a member of New York’s Exonerated Five - comes a novel-in-verse about holding onto yourself even in the darkest of places. After being convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, 16-year-old Amal Shahid finds himself in a juvenile detention center and at the mercy of institutional racism and gang violence. Against these hazards, Amal returns to art and self-expression to shout out his truth. Inspired by Yusuf’s own experiences being falsely imprisoned as a young man, this harrowing and hopeful novel shows readers the nefarious interconnectedness of racism, gentrification, and mass incarceration and points a way forward that is grounded in the history of Black resistance and resilience.
Join author Ibi Zoboi for a talk about her inspiration for the book and the prison reform movement!
Author Aya de Leon, writer of the Justice Hustlers series and more, will be joining Ibi Zoboi in conversation. Aya de Leon directs the Poetry for the People program, teaching creative writing at UC Berkeley.
Registration is required. Register for the event on Zoom.
This event is made possible by the generous support of the Friends of the Berkeley Public Library.
Explore all the other events in our Stories for Change series here and here!