The next day, the guards have painted over the mural, and Amal is dejected.Īmal resolves not to give up and finds himself strengthened by his Uncle Rashon's visit. He enjoys painting the mural and he finally begins to feel free.

He is offered the opportunity to paint a mural in the visitation room as his final project with his friends. Amal leaves the room and thinks about all of the small mistakes and misgivings that he has for the night of the fight that changed his life.Īmal begins to share his story in the poetry class and he feels like all of the boys have formed some kind of brotherhood to help them maintain their sanity through incarceration. She asks the boys about their feelings regarding their pasts and what the truth is about their lives. Amal waits for his Uncle Rashon to come visit the facility, but it is still too painful for Rashon to see his nephew incarcerated.Īmal becomes closer to Kadon, Amir, Smoke, and Rahmarley. Amal begins to send poems and drawings back to Zenobia to show her that he remembers her too. She writes that she always believed his version of the night the fight took place and she promises that she never forgot him. They tell him that Jeremy Mathis' condition has stabilized and they plan to do everything they can to get him out soon.Īmal receives letters from a girl he had a crush on back in school, Zenobia. He sees his mother and his lawyer on visiting days. He feels as though he is fighting against Allah and trying to hold himself together all at the same time. Amal enjoys artistic expression as a way to manage his stress, anxiety, and fear about being incarcerated.Īmal is confined to his cell after an altercation with a racist prison guard, and he nearly goes insane in solitary confinement. One of the other boys, Kadon, bothers Amal during their free recreation time by grabbing his crayons.

Amal attends math class with the other incarcerated boys, but the class is constantly interrupted and derailed. He struggles to sleep on his first night in the facility while he thinks about how Allah could have allowed him to be in such a horrible place. Amal tries to believe his lawyer, Clyde, that everything will be okay and that his family will still love him no matter what the verdict is.Īmal is found guilty and transferred to a juvenile corrections facility. Peer witnesses are called from his specialized art high school across town in East Hills, a predominately white neighborhood. HarperCollins, 2020.Īmal sits in the courtroom with his family at his trial for a fight he was involved in with a white boy, Jeremy Mathis, who is now in a comatose state. The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Zoboi, Ibi and Salaam, Yusef.

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