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Young Adult Literature and Spirituality:

How to Unlock Deeper Understanding with Class Discussion

William Boerman-Cornell, Deborah Vriend Van Duinen, Kristine Alatheia Mensonides Gritter, Xu Bian

PublisherAmazon

Paperback: 180 pages
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Publish Date: October 26, 2022
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1475862105
ISBN-13: 978-1475862102

Authors

William Boerman-Cornell

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

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

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

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.

Endorsements

“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.”

— Richard J. Mouw
President Emeritus, Fuller Theological Seminary

“This book takes some of young adults’ favorite stories and shows us the deep theological gifts that can be made accessible to us through allegory. It makes difficult concepts simple and practical through close analysis and through the practice of loving books.”

 

— Vanessa Zoltan
Author

“If movies can be prayers, why not Young Adult Literature? With generosity and enthusiasm, the authors of Seeing Young Adult Literature as Prayer open up the spiritual possibilities in a wide array of YAL stories, while also offering practical methods for teachers to do the same in their classrooms. Students of all kinds will be the better for it.”

— Josh Larsen
Author