Code Switching in COURT OF FIVES

In Kate Elliott’s Court of Fives, Jessamy must navigate between different cultures, classes, and languages, as she competes in an athletic tournament and struggles to save her family. Elliott explains this navigation, or code-switching, in her guest post at Diversity in YA:

Jessamy’s parents come from different ethnicities, Saroese and Efean (also called Patrons and Commoners in the book). She knows both languages, is fluent in both, and can switch easily between the two in contrast to most of the population, who only speak either Saroese or Efean depending on their ethnicity.

But because Efea is a conquered country, and because the Saroese are the conquerers, she also must negotiate a far trickier form of code-switching: That between the class divide created by the privileged and powerful Patrons and the conquered and looked-down-upon Commoners.

Read more and enter to win a copy of COURT OF FIVES and four other YA SFF novels at Diversity in YA.