Stories of saints
Bribri author and poet Ari Tison pioneers biracial Indigenous young adult literature, threading Costa Rican roots and Midwest living into a hybrid novel of reckoning and identity.
By Rachel Blood
Ari Tison steps onto the wood-paneled stage of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library in Washington, D.C. A white dress dotted with dark flowers swishes just past her knees and applause swells as Tison grins and accepts a glass prism from Young Peoples’ Poet Laureate Elizabeth Acevedo: a Walter Dean Myers award for diversity work in young adult literature.
She wears a smile as she settles her papers on the podium. “Thank you,” she says, leaning forward into the microphone. She glances back at Acevedo. “I can’t believe I just got to hug her.”
Laughter falls into silence as Tison begins her acceptance speech in Bribri, her Indigenous/Native tongue: “Ís be’ shkèna, yamipa.” Hello, friends.
The road to this point of recognition for Tison’s debut novel, “Saints of the Household,” is 320 pages full of poetry, painting and passion. Tison lives among the strands of a far-reaching story, nestled on a hobby farm in the Dakota lands of Wisconsin.
The landscape of literary diversity for children’s audiences has historically been sparse, and the late Walter Dean Myers called this out in a 2014 op-ed in The New York Times. “Where are the people of color in children’s books?” he asked. As he became aware of the lack of Black characters in his favorite stories, he wrote, “Books did not become my enemies. They were more like friends with whom I no longer felt comfortable.”
By July 2014, a year in which people of color published only 8% of children’s books, We Need Diverse Books had become a nonprofit.
Ten years later, that number has risen to 45%. And one of those authors stands on the stage of a library named after a civil rights leader, telling the ascending rows of seats before her that she is honored to be here, to do this kind of work.
Acevedo preceded Tison’s award presentation by acknowledging the need for literary diversity but also noted an ongoing battle.
“The work we’re here to honor today is also under attack,” Acevedo said. “As many of you have seen in the news, book bans have spread at an alarming rate in the U.S.”
“Take a look at the most challenged books across the country and you’ll find many diverse authors on the list. That’s why our theme this year is, ‘There is work to be done.’” — Elizabeth Acevedo, Young Peoples’ Poet Laureate
According to the American Library Association, in the first eight months of 2023, there were nearly 700 attempts to ban library books, a 20% increase compared to 2022. 47% of these titles “represent the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals.”
“Even worse, many of these bans target diverse voices,” Acevedo said. “Take a look at the most challenged books across the country and you’ll find many diverse authors on the list. That’s why our theme this year is, ‘There is work to be done.’”
Tison is doing that work.
As a kid, Tison wanted to be an actress. It took her a while to realize that the part she loved was the storytelling, the ability to embody a different character — and that she could do it on the page instead of the stage.
Of course, now she’s on a stage anyway.
The author of debut novel “Saints of the Household” and several published works of poetry and prose, she’s been surrounded by literature all her life. Her stepmom, also a writer, would listen to Tison dictate fantastical stories and type them up for her. Growing up in Minneapolis surrounded by authors like her stepmom and Kate DiCamillo, Tison picked up poetry in middle and high school.
Words called her, and she always found solace in writing. Every week in college she set aside a few hours to get away in a local coffee shop, working on the same book project: a retelling of the Odyssey, born of her obsession with the Coen brothers — directors of the Odyssey retelling “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” — and the hero’s journey. The protagonist was a girl trying to find out who her father was. Tison says the prose is reminiscent of her favorite book at the time, “The Bean Trees” by Barbara Kingsolver.
“I think I was drawn to stories that had Native characters, but they were problematic representations.” — Ari Tison, author and poet
The narrative of Kingsolver’s work is based on a young woman leaving her home and adopting a Native child. Reading it now, Tison recognizes the representation as problematic but is grateful Kingsolver wrote a second book to reconcile that and explore Native identity.
“I think I was drawn to stories that had Native characters, but they were problematic representations,” Tison said, citing “Twilight” as another example. She feels lucky to have grown up in proximity to Birchbark Books and Native Arts, Louise Erdrich’s Minneapolis-based bookstore. Between this geography and growing up hearing folklore stemming from her mixed Costa Rican and African heritage, Tison had some stories with brown protagonists, but not a lot. Writing about them was a learning curve, she says, and all of Tison’s own projects for school had white main characters.
“I think I felt like I had to do that for that space,” she said, “and that’s something I regret. I wish I would have pushed back on that more. But once I got to grad school … they opened the doors, they’re like, ‘Let’s go.’”
After graduating from the University of Northwestern — St. Paul, she got into the MFA in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults program at Hamline University, where she is now the only graduate of the program to go on to teach in it.
“Your reach is so much bigger when you teach,” Tison said, “because you’re part of peoples’ journey to become writers, too, and that’s pretty darn cool.”
She experimented with poetry and vignettes, middle grade and children’s literature, and all of her words, her manuscripts and stories and scribbles, finally culminated in “Saints.”
The story is told from the alternative perspectives of two brothers of Bribri heritage living in Minnesota. One brother’s perspective is written in vignettes and the other’s is written in poetry, creating a woven narrative of reckoning with family, boyhood and what it means to be Bribri at a white high school. Tison thanks a host of writers, family and friends in the acknowledgements of “Saints,” ranging from her immediate family to the MFAC community to 23rd United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo.
“I have a community of writers around me all the time and that’s kind of rare,” Tison said. “Not a lot of people have what I have.”
“One thing that I’ve always loved when it comes to poetry and YA is the ability to tackle these big topics in a way that hopefully relates to your reader. It’s really important to me eto write books where I can see myself, and where girls like me can see themselves.” — Hannah V. Sawyerr, author and poet
At the Walter Awards, Tison spoke with fellow author Hannah V. Sawyerr, a friend and finalist in the YA category. The two met at last year’s YALLWEST, an annual book festival, and Sawyerr said Tison honestly never felt like a stranger. She shares similar thoughts on the importance of representation in the YA genre in particular.
“One thing that I’ve always loved when it comes to poetry and YA is the ability to tackle these big topics in a way that hopefully relates to your reader,” Sawyerr said. “It’s really important to me eto write books where I can see myself, and where girls like me can see themselves.”
Reflecting on the beginnings of their writing journeys, Tison said she and Sawyerr were similarly driven in their college years. As 18-year-olds, the two were tenacious, committed to pursuing their dreams of writing, and Tison finds herself grateful to her younger self for her energy and dedication and the spaces she found to do good work.
“I think [there’s] also that cool safe space about books, whether you’re writing them or reading them,” Tison said. “There’s kind of space for you to just be with that page and that story and that character. And that can be really healing, especially if you’re growing up in an unsafe space.”
Her newest project also highlights Indigenous characters. Tison draws from her experiences growing up as a Bribri woman in the Midwest, and also visiting her family on the territory in Costa Rica. Tison’s father moved to Ohio at 10 on a student visa, but aside from her immediate family and mentor Mainor Ortiz, she did not have many Bribri influences in the U.S.
Tison’s almost-2-year-old son has already been to Costa Rica, and Tison goes nearly every year. She’ll keep writing and painting on her farm and upon her return to the Twin Cities later this year, weaving her heritage into characters, allowing kids to see themselves in her stories.
Percentage of children’s books published by people of color
2013: 8%
2024: 45%
Percentage of 2019 children’s books depicting main characters who are:
Black: 11.9%
Native/First Nations: 1%
Latinx: 5.3%
Asian/Asian American: 8.7%
Pacific Islander: .05%
White: 41.8%
Animal/other: 29.2%
Characters with a disability: 3.1%
LGBTQ+: 3.1%
Info from Cooperative Children’s Book Center, Lee & Low and We Need Diverse Books.
