This article from the Barnes & Noble blog explores faith-based themes in children’s literature and talks to eleven Teen & YA writers including Muslim author Aisha Saeed who wrote “Written in the Stars” which takes on arranged marriage.
Here’s a snippet of what she had to say, “I wrote stories all my life, but I never wrote about my own experiences or stories reflecting my own culture or faith until I was in college and first saw someone who reflected me in a book; until then, I thought stories about me, my experiences, my faith just wouldn’t matter. When my novel ‘Written in the Stars’ debuted last year, I was moved by the responses from South Asian and Muslim teens. My story was a mirror for them, many told me.”