From the Publisher
"Salaam's compelling memoir is one of astounding warmth…This book should be read by anyone who wants to hear the story of the Exonerated Five directly from one of its members.”—NPR
"An important memoir and call to action that sheds light on the personal injustices of mass incarceration."—Library Journal
“Warm, generous, and inspirational: a book for everyone.”
—Kirkus
“An uplifting and hopeful book.”
—Booklist
"Better Not Bitter is equal parts, a luminous journey of awakening, and an indictment of a system that swallows boys and girls whole, only to spit out their broken bones. It is an urgent and poetic treatise on the human spirit’s ability to make itself whole again over and over. I cried for the little boy who was imprisoned, and rejoiced for the man who emerged years later as a battle tested warrior for justice.”
—Shaka Senghor, New York Times bestselling author of Writing my Wrongs
"Punching the Air is the profound sound of humanity in verse... Utterly indispensable."—Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author (Praise for Punching the Air)
"Zoboi and Salaam have created nothing short of a masterwork of humanity, with lyrical arms big enough to cradle the oppressed, and metaphoric teeth sharp enough to chomp on the bitter bones of racism. This is more than a story. This is a necessary exploration of anger, and a radical reflection of love, which ultimately makes for an honest depiction of what it means to be young and Black in America." —Jason Reynolds, NYT bestselling author of Stamped: Racism, Anti-Racism, and You: A Remix (Praise for Punching the Air)
Library Journal
12/01/2021
In 1989, at age 14, Salaam was one of five teenage boys sentenced to prison for assaulting a Central Park jogger, serving out their sentences before another inmate confessed to the crime and they were exonerated. Here, he speaks of his upbringing, imprisonment, and exoneration in what became a case of national importance while highlighting his belief that we're all "born on purpose, with a purpose" and his work as a prison reform and racial justice activist.
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2021-03-09
One of the wrongly accused and imprisoned Central Park Five recounts his experiences with an unjust system of justice.
Salaam was just 15 when he “was run over by the spiked wheels of justice.” That collision came when he was accused, along with four other teenagers, of raping a young woman in New York’s Central Park and leaving her for dead. Tried as a juvenile, he was sent into adult custody at Rikers Island, “a notoriously violent prison from which many men never returned,” before being shifted in and out of other institutions. In 2002, following a jailhouse confession by the actual attacker, the convictions were overturned. Inside the system, taking a cue from Malcolm X, Salaam accepted the fact that “it’s often incumbent upon the person to educate him- or herself while inside.” He completed high school and earned an associate’s degree, building on his enrollment in the LaGuardia High School of Music and Art when he was only 12. “They have created cages in order to create animals so they’ll have an excuse to create more cages,” writes the author. “But we all have the power to blossom behind those bars.” Sadly, as he notes, whereas he had the support of a loving and attentive mother, many other imprisoned people have no social network. One of the Five, unable to find work and adjust to life outside, returned to prison. Punctuating his prose with memorable images (“Fear was playing Double Dutch with my mind”), Salaam denounces a system of injustice built on the backs of Black people, demonized as born criminals. Remarkably, though Donald Trump himself made his first foray into politics on the backs of the Five, the author mentions him by name just once in a book rich in self-knowledge and compassion. “As the alchemist of your life,” he writes, “you have control over the choices you make on this journey….But no matter what, you can be free.”
Warm, generous, and inspirational: a book for everyone.
