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:
Girl in Pieces, by Kathleen Glasgow
Charlotte Davis, called Charlie, has had a harrowing life. She has been homeless, neglected, and abused, and she’s all of 17 years old. Charlie carries the scars of her past—both physical and emotional—and struggles to surface from the turmoil of her pain. She’s in therapy, but Girl in Pieces doesn’t follow the simple, neat narrative of recovery. Recovery doesn’t start at rock bottom and steadily climb to the top. Recovery is an up-and-down process, where one is always course-correcting after setbacks. Charlie is an artist, but art is not the only piece she needs to make herself whole. Medication, therapy, and finding a community are also pieces she needs to fit together and arrange in her life, and one of the ways she is able to make sense of her circumstances is through drawing. Art is not a magic cure-all, but one of many ways to find healing.
Read about
the other books on the list.
--Marshal Zeringue
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