Ellen Outside the Lines

A.J. Sass is a celebrated children’s author and a professional figure skater. Sass identifies as nonbinary and uses both he/him and they/them pronouns. As a pioneer of gender diversity in children’s literature, he incorporates nonbinary characters into his work and depicts them as understanding and supportive figures who are there not to judge or lecture, but to inform and support people who might not understand varied gender and sexual orientations. Sass also comes from a Jewish background and features Jewish characters in his work to shed light on the religion and its practices. He also makes it a point to convey the aspects that he finds most special and important about Judaism, like the ways in which it brings family together. Sass’s first children’s picture book, Shabbat Is, follows the lives of three different Jewish families who each celebrate Shabbat in their own unique way. 

Sass’s work always promotes the idea that there are infinite ways to express the self and to connect with one’s religion and culture. This is also why novels like Ellen Outside the Lines feature characters in an unfamiliar setting as they explore a different cultural world. Sass has written four middle-grade novels and one picture book to date, as well as contributing to three short-story anthologies.