The Art Thieves
by Andrea L. Rogers
High School    Levine/Levine Querido    400 pp.
10/24    9781646143788    $19.99

This compelling Cherokee-centered speculative novel by Cherokee writer Rogers (Man Made Monsters, rev. 11/22) is set in the near future: the 2050s. Stevie’s world at first looks not much different from ours, though events have progressed: climate change has worsened, genetically modified food and space settlement have developed, and tribal sovereignty has strengthened. The problems young people deal with, from food allergies to unsupportive parents to racism, are especially familiar. Stevie has just graduated from high school and works at a Texas art museum; she lives with her parents and her little brother, who is diagnosed with a likely fatal cancer. Through her interspersed emails, we have a sense of time slippage and a coming apocalypse, which is borne out as the book goes on. The aptly named Adam (or Adawi in the Cherokee language of Tsalagi), a mysterious, handsome young artist, turns out to be a time traveler sent from further in the future in advance of catastrophic events. Stevie’s relationship with him is a tender romance shadowed by the threat of loss. Although some events portrayed may be upsetting, the book’s messages are ultimately about hope for the future, love despite despair, communal work toward positive change, and the redemptive power of art. As Adam says, “Human capacity for creation matters…even the act of saving it is Ceremony.”

From the ">January/February 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.