Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
Ibi Zoboi holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her novel American Street was a National Book Award finalist and a New York Times Notable Book. She is also the author of Pride and My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich, a New York Times bestseller. She is the editor of the anthology Black Enough. Born in Haiti and raised in New York City, she now lives in New Jersey with her husband and their three children.
Ibi Zoboi's website
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I was in the sixth grade when our teacher left a newspaper on his desk. The front page story had images of five teenage boys and the word Wilding was written across the top in bold, black letters. This news story caught my attention because the boys, who were accused of doing something terrible, looked just like the boys in my class, with their high-top fades and windbreakers. They seemed to be the same boys who would beatbox to the latest hip-hop songs and show off their dance moves in class, the same boys I was starting to develop crushes on.
Growing up in New York City, I watched a lot of news about crime and violence, and the faces of Black and Latinx boys were all over the TV screens and newspapers as both the victims and perpetrators. This had a huge impact on me as a teen. As the daughter of an immigrant, my social life centered around whatever my mother's fears were, and since she unfortunately believed the messages in the media— that Black and Latinx boys were menacing and prone to criminal behavior—dating was forbidden. But I and so many others my age, knew the truth: that these boys were so much more than how they were being portrayed in the media, that there is a long history of oppression in this country ...
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