Young, Black and Finding One’s Gifts

Nigeria Jones by Ibi Zoboi and Punching the Air
by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam

Nigeria Jones by Ibi Zoboi
Balzer & Bray, 384 pages
Grand Central Publishing, Hatchette Book Group, Inc. 368 pp.
Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam
Balzer & Bray, 400 pages

Ibi Zoboi is the New York Times bestselling author of books for children and teens, including American Street, a National Book Award Finalist, and the Walter Award and LA Times Book Prize-winning Punching the Air, co-written with Yusef Salaam. Zoboi is also the 2024 Coretta Scott King Award winner for Nigeria Jones. Dr. Yusef Salaam is a politician, motivational speaker, and activist and is the author of the memoir, Better, Not Bitter.

He is currently serving as a member of the New York City Council. In 1989, Salaam was tried and convicted in the “Central Park Jogger” case and is one of the Exonerated Five who spent between seven to 13 years behind bars for crimes they did not commit. Over the past two decades, he has become a poet, activist and inspirational speaker.

Nigeria Jones (Balzer & Bray, 2023) and Punching the Air (Balzer and Bray, 2021) are Young Adult (YA) coming-of-age fiction books that share the common themes of resilience, hope, and the search for self in the face of grief and loss.

Nigeria, the protagonist in Nigeria Jones, is home-schooled and has been raised in an African-centered household in the city of Philadelphia. As the narrative develops, we witness Nigeria’s search for self as she tries to negotiate conflicts with her father and conflicts between her connection to the African-centered cultural education she is receiving and her desire to go to an integrated school that does not reflect these goals and values. Added to this dilemma is Nigeria’s deep longing for her mother who disappeared right after the birth of her little brother Freedom.

Zoboi packs many themes into this novel: mother/daughter relationships, the search for self, identity politics, African-centered spirituality and traditions, and grief. Nigeria ultimately asks herself, what can she do to reconcile the emotional, social, and cultural conflicts in her life and how will she gain the freedom that will give her agency over her life choices.

Readers are guided through the novel by Zoboi’s use of epigraphs that set the tone and provide a message at the beginning of each chapter. Her chapter titled, “Article IV: Black to Freedom School,” for example, begins with a quote attributed to Mary McLeod Bethune. “A woman is free if she lives by her own standards and creates her own destiny if she prizes her individuality and puts no boundaries on her hopes for tomorrow.”

Zoboi and Salaam met while attending Hunter College; they were in a course with Marimba Ani, the African American Studies scholar. That meeting resulted in their discussion over the course work which was revealing to both of them and their eventual collaboration on Punching the Air, a fictionalized and autobiographical representation of a young man who is caught up in the criminal justice system. In narrating his story, the protagonist, Amal Shadid provides an insider’s perspective on the effects of institutionalized racism and mass incarceration on Black young men and women.

Readers learn that Amal Shahid is an artist and poet who is viewed as disruptive and unmotivated while in public school. He has a teacher who recognizes his artistic and poetic talents and recommends him for art school. However, Amal finds himself at the wrong place and time and is accused of beating a White boy into unconsciousness.

He is subsequently arrested and when the victim fails to gain consciousness before his trial, Amal is sent to prison. Punching the Air intertwines Amal’s personal reflections on his incarceration with powerful poetic images that include “punching the air.” While in prison, he dreams words:
But there’s no future in these
four walls four walls
boxing me in boxing me in
so I punch the air . . .
shadowbox with God
spar with all four of these
corners as if they are all
different versions of me.

Amal’s survival in prison is the result of multiple factors that include his mother, Umi, who believes in his innocence and refuses to give up on him, his uncle who gives him books, and his writing and art. Although he views the cell as a tomb, he is resilient.
Down here in the dungeon
I write anyway
I draw anyway
The pen and pencil
Are my thoughts and memories
The paper is my soul.
The impact of the criminal justice system on the psyche of Amal and young men in the system is epitomized in these words.
Their words and what they thought
to be their truth
were like a scalpel
shaping me into
the monster
they want me to be.

Although the target audience for Young Adult Literature (YA) is typically 12 to 18, both Nigeria Jones and Punching the Air address topics that appeal to adult and YA readers. Ibi Zoboi will be a speaker at the 2025 National Black Writers Conference on Young Adult and Middle School Literature at Medgar Evers College on March 29, 2025. For more information about conference visit www.centerforblackliterature.org

Dr. Brenda M. Greene is Professor of English, Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Black Literature, and Senior Special Assistant to the Provost at Medgar Evers College, CUNY.