Young Adult Literature and Spirituality

William Boerman-Cornell has co-authored two previous books about using graphic novels to teach middle school and high school. A former high school English teacher, Boerman-Cornell is a professor of Education at Trinity Christian College near Chicago.Deborah Vriend Van Duinen has served as the director of The NEA Big Read, a community-wide reading discussion program in Holland, Michigan that has pioneered college and community cooperative reading approaches. She is an Associate Professor of Education at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Xu Bian brings expertise as an Assistant Professor of Chinese to a consideration of international and inter-cultural literary interpretation. The author of several peer-reviewed studies, Bian teaches at Seattle Pacific University in Washington state. Kris Gritter has published over twenty peer-reviewed articles and chapters about adolescent literacy and is the award-winning editor of a column in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. Gritter is a professor of Curriculum and Instruction at Seattle Pacific University in Washington state.

• PrefaceAcknowledgementsIntroduction: New Ways to Interpret and Discuss Young Adult LiteratureChapter 1: Prayers of Lament in InternmentChapter 2: Yearning in The Hate U GiveChapter 3: Speak and Long Way Down Graphic Novels for Prayers of AngerChapter 4: Confession in Goodbye Days.Chapter 6: Thankfulness in The War that Saved My LifeChapter 7: The Poet X and Louisiana’s Way Home as Prayers of ReconciliationChapter 8: Using Havruta to Consider Orbiting Jupiter and Beast Player as Prayers of ObedienceChapter 9: Prayers of Contemplation in Where the Mountain Meets the MoonChapter 10: Finding Joy in The Fault in Our Stars through FloralegiumChapter 11: The Inquisitor’s Tale: Using PaRDeS to Explore PilgrimageConclusion: Closing our Discussion and the BooksReferencesAbout the Author

Reading a young adult novel as a prayer of lament? I would not have thought so before getting into this fascinating--and provocative --book. Now I have new eyes to see.