We teamed up with the Fairfield Public Library, Pequot Library, and Fairfield University Bookstore to select the 2021 One Book One Town book, Punching the Air. From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five this powerful YA novel written in verse is about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated.
A committee of librarians read piles of books over the summer of 2020 to make the selection and announced it to the public in December. One Book One Town (OBOT) is an annual town-wide reading initiative culminates in the spring with a author event, which this year was hosted virtually on March 2nd 2021 with over 325 attendees. View the author's in conversation on the University's YouTube channel [OBOT Author Event Recording]
As part of the OBOT promotion to the Fairfield University campus we offered a Winter Reading Challenge which included staff, faculty, and students who signed up to challenge themselves to read books in 14 categories. One category was to read the 2021 OBOT selection, Punching the Air. Here are some of their comments about the book:
- "We read this for the university