Elana Kuczynski Arnold is an American children's and young adult author. Her 2017 novel What Girls Are Made Of was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, and her 2018 novel Damsel was named a Michael L. Printz Award Honor title in 2019.
In 2022, three of Arnold's books (Damsel, Red Hood, and What Girls Are Made Of ) were listed among 52 novels banned by the Alpine School District following the implementation of Utah H.B. 374, âÂÂSensitive Materials In Schools."
Arnold obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Comparative Literature from University of California, Irvine. In 1998, she Master of Arts degree in English and Creative Writing from the University of California, Davis.
Arnold now teaches with Hamline University's Master of Fine Arts program focusing on Writing for Children and Young Adults.
She lives in Southern California.
Nine of Arnold's book are Junior Library Guild selections: A Boy Called Bat (2017), Bat and the Waiting Game (2018), Damsel (2018), Bat at the End of Everything (2019), The House That Wasn't There (2021), Red Hood (2021), Starla Jean (2021), and Just Harriet (2022).
In 2021, Publishers Weekly named Red Hood one of the top ten young adult novels of the year.
In 2024 the Republican-dominated Utah Legislature passed a law mandating the removal of books deemed objectionable from all Utah public schools (including charter schools). On 2 August 2024 the Utah State School Board released its first list of banned books. Elana K. Arnold's young adult novel What Girls Are Made Of was on this list.