Nine YA books worthy of the Muses

Heidi Heilig's new novel is For a Muse of Fire.

At the BN Teen blog she tagged nine YA books worthy of the Muses, including:

To honor Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, read Long Way Down, by Jason Reynolds.

Now, on its face, a novel-in-verse about a sixty-second elevator ride might not seem like an epos, but let’s see…We have an extraordinary hero in fifteen-year-old Will, who has shoved a gun his waistband on his way to avenge his brother’s murder. We have superhuman forces when the elevator stops to let on ghosts from Will’s past—ghosts of kids who died by gun violence. And in this story, we definitely have doings that give shape to our own moral universe, that we must understand to know ourselves as a nation. Jason Reynolds’ novel in verse is truly worthy of the gods themselves.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue