Verse Novels

Hippie Librarian - Kate Dillon
Mar 23, 2017
7 min read

@fmslovesbooks We LOVE

Verse Novels!

Students: ...but what ARE they???

Mrs. Dillon: Verse Novels are a category or genre of books that are written like poetry.

Students: ...oh. You mean like stuff that rhymes. Stuff about love that is like "Oh how I love thee, let me count the ways..." BOOORING.

Mrs. Dillon: No, no, no. Cool books about basketball, school humor, crime, mystery, foster families, sea adventures, and well... okay some are about relationships, sure.

Students: Ah ha! See!!!

Mrs. Dillon: But they aren't old Shakespeare stuff! Most of them don't rhyme either. They are stories told with fewer words, so the words they do choose are really important and make you think differently about a character. It's pretty dramatic!

Here are some in our library that students have LOVED so much that they got AWARDS.

The HIGHEST honor goes to The Crossover, by Kwame Alexander. This book won the Newbery Award and a Coretta Scott King Award last year. I got to meet the author last summer and he's amazing and I CANNOT do this book justice to read aloud to you like he can, but it is so so so good! It's about basketball and friendship and toughness and...

See look! Here I am in a picture with Kwame holding up a picture book he also wrote.

Students: She's on a roll now... okay, fine. Let's hear about these "Verse Novels".

Mrs. Dillon: Okay guys! Here are some I think that you will really love. If you haven't checked them out yet, you should come on by!

Click the arrows to see more available!

And We Stay, by Jenny Hubbard: When high school senior Paul Wagoner walks into his school library with a stolen gun, he threatens his girlfriend Emily Beam, then takes his own life. In the wake of the tragedy, an angry and guilt-ridden Emily is shipped off to boarding school in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she encounters a ghostly presence who shares her name. The spirit of Emily Dickinson and two quirky girls offer helping hands, but it is up to Emily to heal her own damaged self.This inventive story, told in verse and in prose, paints the aftermath of tragedy as a landscape where there is good behind the bad, hope inside the despair, and springtime under the snow.

Audacity, by Melanie Crowder: The inspiring story of Clara Lemlich, whose fight for equal rights led to the largest strike by women in American history... inspired by the real-life story of Clara Lemlich. Clara refuses to accept substandard working conditions in the factories on Manhattan's Lower East Side. For years, Clara devotes herself to the labor fight, speaking up for those who suffer in silence. In time, Clara convinces the women in the factories to strike, organize, and unionize, culminating in the famous Uprising of the 20,000.

The Bridge from Me to You, by: Lisa Schroeder: Lauren has a secret. Colby has a problem. But when they find each other, everything falls into place.Lauren is the new girl in town with a dark secret. Colby is the football hero with a dream of something more. In alternating chapters they come together, fall apart, and build something stronger than either of them thought possible - something to truly believe in.

Brown Girl, Dreaming, by: Jacqueline Woodson: Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement.

Full Cicada Moon, by: Marilyn Hilton: It's 1969, and the Apollo 11 mission is getting ready to go to the moon. But for half-black, half-Japanese Mimi, moving to a predominantly white Vermont town is enough to make her feel alien. Suddenly, Mimi's appearance is all anyone notices. She struggles to fit in with her classmates, even as she fights for her right to stand out by entering science competitions and joining Shop Class instead of Home Ec. And even though teachers and neighbors balk at her mixed-race family and her refusals to conform, Mimi's dreams of becoming an astronaut never fade-no matter how many times she's told no.

One Crazy Summer, by: Rita Williams-Garcia: Eleven-year-old Delphine is like a mother to her two younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern. She's had to be, ever since their mother, Cecile, left them seven years ago for a radical new life in California. But when the sisters arrive from Brooklyn to spend the summer with their mother, Cecile is nothing like they imagined. While the girls hope to go to Disneyland and meet Tinker Bell, their mother sends them to a day camp run by the Black Panthers. Unexpectedly, Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern learn much about their family, their country, and themselves during one truly crazy summer.

Inside Out and Back Again, by: Thanhha Lai: For all the ten years of her life, Ha; has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, and the warmth of her friends close by. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. Ha; and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, Ha; discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food . . . and the strength of her very own family.

Hideous Love, by: Stephanie Hemphill: the fascinating story of gothic novelist Mary Shelley, most famous for the classic Frankenstein. An all-consuming love affair with famed poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a family torn apart by scandal, a young author on the brink of greatness: Hideous Love is the story of the mastermind behind one of the most iconic figures in all of literature, a monster constructed out of dead bodies and brought to life by the tragic Dr. Frankenstein.

Hidden, by: Helen Frost: When Wren Abbott and Darra Monson are eight years old, Darra's father steals a minivan. He doesn't know that Wren is hiding in the back. The hours and days that follow change the lives of both girls. Darra is left with a question that only Wren can answer. Wren has questions, too.Years later, in a chance encounter at camp, the girls face each other for the first time. They can finally learn the truth—that is, if they're willing to reveal to each other the stories that they've hidden for so long. Told from alternating viewpoints.

House Arrest, by: K. A. Holt: Timothy is on probation. It's a strange word--something that happens to other kids, to delinquents, not to kids like him. And yet, he is under house arrest for the next year. He must check in weekly with a probation officer and a therapist, and keep a journal for an entire year. And mostly, he has to stay out of trouble. But when he must take drastic measures to help his struggling family, staying out of trouble proves more difficult than Timothy ever thought it would be. This book is touching and funny, and always original, House Arrest is a middle grade novel in verse about one boy's path to redemption as he navigates life with a sick brother, a grieving mother, and one tough probation officer.

Salt, by: Helen Frost: Anikwa and James, twelve years old in 1812, spend their days fishing, trapping, and exploring together in the forests of the Indiana Territory. To Anikwa and his family, members of the Miami tribe, this land has been home for centuries. As traders, James's family has ties to the Miami community as well as to the American soldiers in the fort. Now tensions are rising—the British and American armies prepare to meet at Fort Wayne for a crucial battle, and Native Americans from surrounding tribes gather in Kekionga to protect their homeland. After trading stops and precious commodities, like salt, are withheld, the fort comes under siege, and war ravages the land. James and Anikwa, like everyone around them, must decide where their deepest loyalties lie. Can their families—and their friendship—survive?

Shark Girl, by: Kelly L. Bingham: On a sunny day in June, at the beach with her mom and brother, fifteen-year-old Jane Arrowood went for a swim. And then everything — absolutely everything — changed. Now she's counting down the days until she returns to school with her fake arm, where she knows kids will whisper, "That's her — that's Shark Girl," as she passes. In the meantime there are only questions: Why did this happen? Why her? What about her art? What about her life? In this striking first novel, Kelly Bingham uses poems, letters, telephone conversations, and newspaper clippings to look unflinchingly at what it's like to lose part of yourself - and to summon the courage it takes to find yourself again.

Street Love, by: Walter Dean Myers: In short lines of free verse, teens in Harlem tell a story of anger, loss, and love across social-class lines. Damien, 17, is a basketball champion and academic star, accepted into a top college. His parents want him to date middle-class Roxanne, but he falls in love with gorgeous Junice, 16, who is desperate to protect her little sister after their single-parent mom is sentenced to 25 years for dealing drugs.

Wicked Girls, by: Stephanie Hemphill: fictionalized account of the Salem Witch trials from three of the real young women living in Salem in 1692. Ann Putnam Jr. is the queen bee. When her father suggests a spate of illnesses in the village is the result of witchcraft, she puts in motion a chain of events that will change Salem forever. Mercy Lewis is the beautiful servant in Ann's house who inspires adulation in some and envy in others. With her troubled past, she seizes her only chance at safety.Margaret Walcott, Ann's cousin, is desperately in love. She is torn between staying loyal to her friends and pursuing a life with her betrothed. With new accusations mounting against the men and women of the community, the girls will have to decide: Is it too late to tell the truth?

The Wolf, by: Steven Herrick: Jake and Lucy hike to Sheldon Mountain: Jake to prove his dad right or wrong about the wolf he claims he saw; Lucy to escape her father's cruelty. Jake's dad saw the wolf before Jake was born. They say wolves don't live in this country, yet in the night Jake hears it howling, long and lonely. During the hike, both are tested--physically, emotionally, spiritually--but what they find on that dangerous, dark mountain surprises them both.

Worlds Afire, by: Paul B Janeczko: Based on a real circus fire in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1944 that killed 167 in a few minutes and injured more than 500, Janeczko's spare poetic novel describes the events in the voices of 29 eyewitnesses: children and adults in the audience, circus folk, and townspeople.