“Punching the Air," by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam (Balzer + Bray, 400 pp., ★★★½ out of four), is a narrative poem about mass incarceration and being Black in America, aimed at young readers.

Punching the Air is a novel about a 16-year-old Black and Muslim teenager whose life is interrupted after being wrongfully incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit in a gentrified neighborhood ...