Verse Novels

Adoff, Jaime.  Jimi & Me.  329 p.

            A novel in the form of poems, in which eighth grader Keith James seeks strength in the music of Jimi Hendrix while struggling to cope with his father's violent death, his family's sudden move from Brooklyn to a small town in Ohio, and revelations about his father's past.

Bryant, Jen.  Pieces of Georgia.  166 p.

Bryant, Jen.  The Trial.

Carvell, Marlene.  Who Will Tell My Brother. 150 p.

          During his lonely crusade to remove offensive mascots from his high school, a Native American teenager learns more about his heritage, his ancestors, and his place in the world.

Collins, Pat Lowery.  The Fattening Hut.  186 p.

          A teenage girl living on a tropical island runs away to escape her tribe's customs of arranged marriages and female genital mutilation.

Conner, Leslie.  Dead on Town Line. 131 p.

          A murdered teen's experience of her afterlife includes her efforts to have her body found and to provide comfort to her loved ones.

Cormier, Robert.  Frenchtown Summer.  113 p.

          A series of vignettes in free verse in which the writer reminisces about his life as a twelve-year-old boy living in a small town during the hot summer of 1938.

Corrigan, Eireann.  Splintering.  184 p.

          Relates, in a series of poems from different perspectives, the events and after-effects of an intruder's violent attack on a family.

Creech, Sharon.  Heartbeat. 180 p.

          Twelve-year-old Annie ponders the many rhythms of life the year that her mother becomes pregnant, her grandfather begins faltering, and her best friend (and running partner) becomes distant.

Creech, Sharon.  Love That Dog.  86 p.

          A young student, who comes to love poetry through a personal understanding of what different famous poems mean to him, surprises himself by writing his own inspired poem.

Deem, James M.  3 NBs of Julian Drew. Not in GHS library

          Presented as a series of notebook entries by the mentally and physically abused Julian Drew, the novel is written in a simple but irritating code. Numbers replace letters in particularly loaded words or phrases: "1M155U" is the equivalent of "I miss you."

Fields, Terri.  After the Death of Anna Gonzales. 100 p.

          Poems written in the voices of forty-seven people, including students, teachers, and other school staff, record the aftermath of a high school student's suicide and the preoccupations of teen life.

Frost, Helen.  Keesha’s House.  116 p.

          Seven teens facing such problems as pregnancy, closeted homosexuality, and abuse each describe in poetic forms what caused them to leave home and where they found home again.

Glenn, Mel.  Class Dismissed: High School Poems 

          Seventy poems about the emotional lives of contemporary high school students.

Glenn, Mel.  Class Dismissed II: More High School Poems.

          Another seventy poems about the emotional lives of contemporary high school students.

Glenn, Mel.  Foreign Exchange: a mystery in poems.  159 p.

          A series of poems reflect the thoughts of various people--town residents young and old, teachers, and some students visiting from the city--caught up in the events surrounding the murder of a beautiful high school student who had recently moved to the small lake-side community of Hudson Landing.

Glenn, Mel.  Jump Ball: A Basketball Season in Poems.  151 p.

          Tells the story of a high school basketball team's season through a series of poems reflecting the feelings of students, their families, teachers, and coaches.

Glenn, Mel.  Split Image: a story in poems.  153 p.

          A series of poems reflect the thoughts and feelings of various people-- students, the librarian, parents, the principal, and others-- about the seemingly perfect Laura Li and her life inside and out of Tower High School.

Grimes, Nikki.  Bronx Masquerade.  167 p.

          While studying the Harlem Renaissance, students at a Bronx high school read aloud poems they've written, revealing their innermost thoughts and fears to their formerly clueless classmates.

Grimes, Nikki.  Dark Sons.  216 p.

          Alternating poems compare and contrast the conflicted feelings of Ishmael, son of the Biblical patriarch Abraham, and Sam, a teenager in New York City, as they try to come to terms with being abandoned by their fathers and with the love they feel for their younger stepbrothers

Herrick, Steven.  The Wolf.  214 p.

Hemphill, Stephanie.  Things Left Behind.  261 p.

          Sarah used to be the good girl. The one who always had her hand raised in class, always obeyed her parents. Until she met Robin. Once Robin comes into the picture, Sarah's life changes. Her closet begins to fill with black clothes. Good grades become something to be studiously avoided. And maintaining her other friendships doesn't seem so important anymore.

Herrera, Juan Felipe.  Crash Boom Love.  155 p.

          After his father leaves home, sixteen-year-old Cesar Garcia lives with his mother and struggles through the painful experiences of growing up as a Mexican American high school student.

Herrick, Steven.  Love, Ghosts and Facial Hair.  115p.

          Sixteen-year-old Jack, a normal teen in Australia, describes his life and concerns with sex, sports, facial hair, and the death of his mother seven years earlier. Presented in a series of free-verse poems.

Herrick, Steven.  A Place Like This.  137 p.

          A verse novel set in Australia in which two young lovers postpone college to embark on a road trip and find themselves working on an apple orchard, where they become immersed in the life of the owner's teenage daughter, who is pregnant as the result of a rape.

Herrick, Steven.  The Simple Gift.  188 p.

          Sixteen-year-old Billy runs away from his alcoholic, abusive father and takes up residence in an abandoned freight car where he meets Old Bill, a fellow hobo, and together they form a friendship based on small kindnesses that change their lives.

Hesse, Karen.  Aleutian Sparrow.  156 p.

          An Aleutian Islander recounts her suffering during World War II in American internment camps designed to "protect" the population from the invading Japanese

Hesse, Karen.  Out of the Dust.  227p.

          In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.

Hesse, Karen.  Witness.  227 p.

          In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.

Hopkins, Ellen.  Crank.  537 p.

          Kristina Georgia Snow's life is turned upside-down, when she visits her absentee father, gets turned on to the drug "crank", becomes addicted, and is lead down a desperate path that threatens her mind, soul, and her life.

Hopkins, Ellen.  Glass. 681 p.

          Kristina is determined to break her addiction to drugs in order to keep her newborn child; but when she fails and the pull becomes too strong, her greatest fears are quickly realized.

Janeczko, Paul B.  Worlds Afire. 92 p.

          In this novel written as a collection of eyewitness poems, the excitement and anticipation of attending the circus on July 6, 1944 in Hartford, Connecticut, turns to horror when a fire engulfs the circus tent, killing nearly 180 people, mostly women and children.

Kearney, Meg.  The Secret of Me.  132 p.

          Presents a novel written in verse reflecting the feelings and emotions of fourteen-year-old Lizzie McLane as she discusses what it is like to be adopted.

Koertge, Ron.  Shakespeare Bats Cleanup.  116 p.

          When a fourteen-year-old baseball player catches mononucleosis, he discovers that keeping a journal and experimenting with poetry not only helps fill the time, it also helps him deal with life, love, and loss.

Levithan, David.  The Realm of Possibility.  210 p.

          A variety of students at the same high school describe their ideas, experiences, and relationships in a series of interconnected free verse stories.

Mass, Wendy. Heaven looks a lot like the mall : a novel. 251 p.

            After an accident in gym class puts sixteen-year-old Tessa into a coma, she re-evaluates her life by visiting the mall stores where significant events in her life took place.

Merrell, Billy.  Talking in the Dark.  136 p.

          Presents a collection of poems by Billy Merrell in which he explores themes of love, sadness, and happiness.

Moss, Thylias.  Slave Moth.  152 p.

          Presents a narrative verse which follows the life of Varl, a slave girl on the Perry Plantation in Tennessee who achieves freedom of spirit by embroidering her thoughts into her clothing and gradually builds the courage and will to seek freedom of body.

Rosenberg.  Seventeen.  142 p.

          Seventeen-year-old Stephanie journeys from fall to spring and from childhood to womanhood as she experiences first love and deals with her fear of inheriting her mother's mental illness.

Rylant, Cynthia.  God Went to Beauty School.  56 p.

          A novel in poems that reveal God's discovery of the wonders and pains in the world he has created.

Sones, Sonya.  One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies.  268 p.

          Fifteen-year-old Ruby Milliken leaves her best friend, her boyfriend, her aunt, and her mother's grave in Boston and reluctantly flies to Los Angeles to live with her father, a famous movie star who divorced her mother before Ruby was born.

Sones, Sonya.  What My Mother Doesn’t Know.  259 p.

          Sophie describes her relationships with a series of boys as she searches for Mr. Right.

Testa, Maria.  Becoming Joe DiMaggio.  51 p.

          Joseph Paul grows up following the career of baseball great Joe DiMaggio while learning the rules of the game from his grandfather; but he dreams of playing ball some day himself and somehow healing his grandfather's broken heart.

Turner, Ann.  Learning to Swim.  113 p.

          A series of poems convey the feelings of a young girl whose sense of joy and security at the family's summer house is shattered when an older boy who lives nearby sexually abuses her.

Wayland, April Halprin.  Girl Coming in for a Landing.  134 p.

          A collection of over 100 poems recounting the ups and downs of one adolescent girl's school year.

Wild, Margaret.  Jinx.  215 p.

          With the help of her understanding mother and a close friend, Jen eventually outgrows her nickname, Jinx, and deals with the deaths of two boys with whom she had been involved.

Wild, Margaret.  One Night.  170 p.

          Nineteen-year-old Kelly, ex-addict niece of a nationally-renowned Minnesota talk show host, has an unexpected adventure with the visiting prince of a war-torn Eastern European country.

Williams, Julie.  Escaping Tornado Season.  262 p.

          Poems describe how thirteen-year-old Allie, living with her grandparents in a small Minnesota town in the 1960s, struggles to cope with her father's recent death, being abandoned by her mother, and trying to fit in at school.

Wolf, Allan.  New Found Land  500 p.

          The letters and thoughts of Thomas Jefferson, members of the Corps of Discovery, their guide Sacagawea, and Captain Lewis's Newfoundland dog, all tell of the historic exploratory expedition to seek a water route to the Pacific Ocean.

Wolf, Allan.  Zane’s Trace. 177 p.

          Believing he has killed his grandfather, Zane Guesswind heads for his mother's Zanesville, Ohio, grave to kill himself, driving the 1969 Plymouth Barracuda his long-gone father left behind, and meeting along the way assorted characters who help him discover who he really is.

Wolff, Virginia Euwer.  Make Lemonade. 257 p.

          Fourteen-year-old LaVaughn, trying to earn the money for college, takes a job caring for the two children of Jolly, a single teenage mom, and must find the courage to make the right decision for all of them after Jolly is fired.

Wolff, Virginia Euwer.  True Believer. 264 p.

          Sequel to: Make Lemonade.  Living in the inner city amidst guns and poverty, fifteen-year-old LaVaughn learns from old and new friends, and inspiring mentors, that life is what you make it--an occasion to rise to.

Woodson, Jacqueline.  Locomotion.  100 p.

          Inspired by his teacher, eleven-year-old Lonnie begins to write about his life in a series of poems in which he discusses his feelings about his friends, his foster mom, his little sister Lili, and the death of his parents.