Friday, November 11, 2016

Five YA novels in which art saves lives

S. Jae-Jones is the author of Wintersong, forthcoming from Thomas Dunne Books in Winter 2017. At the BN Teen blog she tagged five YA "novels in which art saves lives, both literally and figuratively," including:
Infandous, by Elana K. Arnold

Elana K. Arnold’s Infandous is a beautiful, almost dreamlike novel about Sephora Golding, a teenage girl who creates found-object sculptures. Sephora and her mother are incredibly close, and Sephora imagines her mother’s life and past through the lens of fairy tales, but the narrative she crafts for herself through her art tells a different story. There is “unspeakable shit” in Sephora’s past, and how she discovers and comes to terms with the ramifications this has on her life (and potentially her relationship with her mother) grips the reader until the twist is revealed. Sephora’s sculptures are a way for her to find a way to express her horror even before her mind can fully comprehend it, speaking to the power of art not just to heal, but to make sense of our world.
Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue