Brothers Jay and Max, 11 months apart, are high school seniors in Minnesota. They live with their mother, who is Bribri (Indigenous Costa Rican), and their physically abusive white dad, always on high alert for danger. Because their dad is much less likely to hurt their mom if one of them is around, they make sure she’s alone with him as little as possible. Jay and Max are also in counseling after beating up Luca, their cousin Nicole’s boyfriend, when they were sure he was physically threatening her. After their father is arrested and sent to jail, the tight bond between the brothers begins to fray. Jay is smart but has never considered leaving his mom to go college. He continues to spend most of his free time at home or with Nicole, and he remains fixated on the danger Luca represents. Meanwhile, Max is working on his portfolio for his art school application, secretly dating a girl named Melody, and feeling frustrated by his brother’s disinterest in the future. When the growing tension between the two erupts into violence, the presence of their Bribri grandfather, who comes to spend a few weeks, is calming for Jay especially as the brothers make steps toward reconciliation and independent, hopeful futures. This beautifully written exploration of the impact of family trauma and abuse is written in Max’s and Jay’s alternating voices; Max in verse and Jay in prose. (Age 14 and older)

Winner of the Pura Belpré Award and Walter Dean Myers Award for Young Adult Literature!

Saints of the Household is a haunting contemporary YA about an act of violence in a small-town--beautifully told by a debut Indigenous Costa Rican-American writer--that will take your breath away.

Max and Jay have always depended on one another for their survival. Growing up with a physically abusive father, the two Bribri American brothers have learned that the only way to protect themselves and their mother is to stick to a schedule and keep their heads down.

But when they hear a classmate in trouble in the woods, instinct takes over and they intervene, breaking up a fight and beating their high school's star soccer player to a pulp. This act of violence threatens the brothers' dreams for the future and their beliefs about who they are. As the true details of that fateful afternoon unfold over the course of the novel, Max and Jay grapple with the weight of their actions, their shifting relationship as brothers, and the realization that they may be more like their father than they thought. 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 about brotherhood, abuse, recovery, and doing the right thing.