A01=Ari Tison
abusive father
Author_Ari Tison
beautiful
bribri
Category=YFN
coming of age
costa rican
debut author
diverse
emotional
eq_bestseller
eq_childrens
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_teenage-young-adult
heartwrenching
heritage
high school
indigenous
native writer
novel in verse
own voices
poet
poetry for teens
school and library
teenage boy
ya
Product details
- ISBN 9781250907004
- Weight: 272g
- Dimensions: 136 x 210mm
- Publication Date: 15 Dec 2025
- Publisher: Palgrave USA
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Max and Jay depend on each other. Growing up in Minnesota with a physically abusive father, the two Bribri American brothers have learned to protect themselves and their mom by keeping their heads down.
But when they hear a classmate in trouble in the woods, instinct takes over and they break up a fight, harming their school's star soccer player in the process. This act of violence threatens the brothers' dreams for the future. As the true details of that fateful afternoon unfold, Max and Jay grapple with the weight of their actions. They'll have to reach back to their Bribri roots to find their way forward.
Told in alternating points of view, using vignettes and poems, debut author Ari Tison crafts an emotional, slow-burning drama that will take your breath away.
Ari Tison is a Bribri (Indigenous Costa Rican) American and African-descended poet and storyteller. Her poems and short works have been published in Yellow Medicine Review, The Under Review, Rock & Sling, and Poetry's first ever edition for children. She was the winner of the 2018 Vaunda Micheaux Nelson Award for a BIPOC writer with Lerner Publishing. She is the annual broadside editor for the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, where she gets to collaborate with the Minnesota Center for the Book Arts to bring incarcerated voices into the world. Saints of the Household is her debut novel. AriTison.com
