Sandip Wilson
​Novels in verse presenting complex topics, characters, and plots in an accessible format engage young people and inspire their critical thinking. The books have characteristics that appeal to readers of all ages such as visual qualities of the lines on the page, the different poetic styles and structures that authors use, and the rhythm of the language. The books reviewed here, narratives on contemporary and challenging topics, offer insights into characters, experiences, and places. They make good choices for reading aloud and small-group and independent reading.

​13 Ways to Say Goodbye. Kate Fussner. (2025). Harper Collins.
Twelve-year-old Nina has the chance to complete her sister, Lily’s list of thirteen things she wanted to do before she was thirteen and before she died when Nina was ten. Nina “never liked/ alone, never knew/ my way,” and wanted to do what Lily did although her sister Nina to be herself, but this summer she travels alone to Paris to visit Aunt Renée, learn French, go to art class with Madam Toussaint, and do things on the list. Aunt Renée shows Nina notable places and introduces her to French-speaking Sophie, also in the art class. Madam Toussaint, a stern and knowledgeable task master, holds her classes in galleries and museums. While Sophie excels in using media, Nina struggles with developing her skills, but with Sophie, she has the adventures on the list. As she crosses off an item, she relives memories of her family, until Lily appears in a climactic memory, encouraging Nina in her affection for Sophie and her artwork. GR 5-8 

All the Blues in the Sky. Renée Watson. (2025). Bloomsbury Children’s Books.
Sage relives the night, on her thirteenth birthday, one month ago, when a hit-and-run driver killed her best friend, Angel Rodriguez, who was on her way to Sage’s house to celebrate at Sage’s birthday. The tragedy haunts Sage, leaving her feeling sad and guilty. Part of a grief counseling group at school with her teacher, Mrs. Carter, and friends Ebony, Zay, and DD, she learns that grief results from many kinds of loss; people experience it in many ways. She learns that grief is like hunger. Eating one day doesn’t mean she isn’t hungry the next. As she experiences moments of happiness along with sadness, Sage learns that grief comes and goes in waves; yet, she fears that Angel died without knowing how much Sage loved her until she makes discoveries about Angel in this novel of friendship, discovery, and rising through deep sorrow. In the back matter, Renée Watson shares experiences of death and dying in her author’s note. GR 6 Up 

All the Love Under the Sky. Kip Wilson (Ed).  (2025). Nancy Paulsen Books.
This collection of stories in verse, by children’s and young adult authors, shows the language of love in different situations and times. Stories of legend and myth such as “The Bridegroom’s Oak” are among stories that contain myths, such as “Borrowed Blossoms,” which tells the story of a musician and warrior prince in ancient Mexico who live in cities at war, yet the young men come to love each other during the prince’s diplomatic visit. “The Water Clock” is the story of a twelfth-century Indian mathematician, Leela, who fell in love with mathematics at six and at seventeen with Xiang, a visiting Chinese scholar, when asked to help with his translations. Other stories show how love “stretches across generations,” complex love of family relationships, unconditional love of grandparents, the fresh romance of young people, and a turnabout story about losing love in “Not So Sweet (An Anti-Cupid Story).”  Author notes follow each story and longer author biographies are in the back matter. GR 9-12

Away. Megan Freeman. (2025). Simon & Schuster/Aladdin.
Twelve-year old Ashanti, whose mother is a medical doctor, fourteen-year old Grandin, who works on the family farm, twelve-year old Harmony, aspiring journalist, and eleven-year old Teddy, movie maker, are among families of a river valley in Colorado transported to a camp far from their home because of mass contamination to land and water. This companion novel to Alone (2021), told in alternating chapters of the characters’ voices, recounts their lives cut off from the outside world and closely guarded by the governors who give them updates on the growing tragedy of the valley. They become suspicious when Ashanti reports that her doctor mother says she has seen none of the illnesses the governors report. Their suspicion that photos showing devastation to forest, farms, and property are doctored is confirmed by mountain people not evacuated. As they discover the truth about events, they learn their purpose and who is responsible for the evacuation in this science fiction mystery thriller about community and collaboration.  GR 5 Up 

The Extraordinary Orbit of Alex Ramirez. Jasminne Paulino. (2025). Putnam.
Seventh-grade student Alex wants to get into the science class and out of the SC, self-contained classroom, but his teacher, Ms. Sharon, tells him the science class will be too much for him, since he loses control when overwhelmed. His mother wants to keep him safe in the SC, but his father believes “we need to try/ we won’t know anything/ if we don’t try.”  Through his insistence, Alex is offered a place in the class, but loses Chase’s close friendship, who feels left out. When Alex learns that Ms. Rosen is introducing iCreate, a science club, for all the students, Alex believes he has found a way for both of them to become part of the school’s science community, but he has to overcome the fear he feels with Richard and Leonard’s daily harassment and bullying. Alex learns the power of his efforts in this novel, which includes dialogue in Spanish, and explores friendship, self-discovery, and determination. GR 5 Up

​Glitch Girl. Rainie Oet. (2025). Kokila.
J— tells their story from the fifth grade through the seventh grade, including their friendship with Garrison, a crush on Junie, and their struggles at school where they fail classwork and are put in detention for outbursts and disorderly conduct.  They find solace, escape, and expression in creating theme parks with Coaster Boss, a computer game in which they create roller coasters and other adventures for the guests that populate the parks, but finds a glitch in their disasters. While J— suffers sadness they can’t explain, their mother supports their activities and their father is a harsh judge of their gestures of identity. In seventh grade, J— meets someone much like them and discovers that, “The reason I am bad is because I–ADHD, girl-boy, hated by Junie–/ am a glitch.” He stands up to his parents and their purposeful punishment as they develop a new friendship. The back matter includes an author’s note with interviews of the real people who were Junie and Garrison.  GR 5 Up

It's All or Nothing, Vale. Andrea Beatriz Arango. (2025). Random House.
Puerto Rican Middle-school student Valentina Camacho Guitiérrez, a nationally ranked fencer, challenges herself to reach that caliber again after being sidelined four months because of injury to her legs, but pain persists as she practices.  Coach, friends, and family urge her to be kind to herself; yet, remembering her mother’s mantra, all her nothing, she pushes herself, motivated by the ability, ease, and power of the new fencer, Myrka, who, for Vale, is a competitor. Encouraged by her family’s evening salsa dancing and her physical therapist, she builds her spirit and strength and discovers her attraction to Myrka, who openly wants to befriend her.  Since Myrka is Cuban, they share cultural practices in this novel that reveals the culture of fencing and perspectives on friendship, healing, and self-discovery.  The back matter includes an author’s note in which Beatriz Arango explains her research into fencing. GR 5 Up 

Octopus Moon. Bobbie Pyron. (2025). Nancy Paulsen Books.
Pearl does not look forward to the fifth grade. After a satisfying summer, loving her work at the Gulfarium, an aquarium where her mother works in Crescent Bay, Florida, and watching her favorite animals, the loggerhead turtles and the octopus thinking of her new school fills her with dread. “A dark fog creeps in,” making her feel sad, separate from friends, Rosie and Mia, and activities she has known her whole life, and leaving her guilty about her fear. As her sadness deepens, failing classwork and unable to get out of bed, her parents take her to see Dr. Jill. in this novel of second chances, courage, managing illness, and self-discovery Dr. Jill helps Pearl recognize her depression as an illness and Pearl becomes involved in fundraising for the Gulfarium. The back matter includes an author’s note where Bobbie Pyron describes her childhood anxiety and depression. GR 3 and Up 

Radiant. Vaunda Micheaux Nelson. (2025). Dutton Books for Young Readers.
Cooper Dale, a fifth grader in 1963, wants to shine, radiant and brilliant in her class with Mrs. Kneeland, but wealthy Wade Carter calls her names and makes fun of her daily, making her reticent. Bold in her artwork, she questions the concept of color, flesh, a pink. Since her flesh is brown, she thinks other colors for flesh should be included. She says that Peter Pan and Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz could be any color since the books make no reference to their color.  Her mother serves as housekeeper for Mrs. Carter, but when she is diagnosed with cancer, Cooper’s mother does much more for her family and Cooper sees Wade, sad and withdrawn, in a new way, challenging her ideas about him.  With Hakim, the other black student and new in the class, her sense of herself shifts as she helps her mother and Wade’s family deal with their bereavement in this novel of self-discovery and meaning of radiance. Back matter includes the section “With Gratitude.”  GR 4-6 

Safe Harbor. Padma Venkatraman. (2025). Nancy Paulsen Books.
Middle-school student, Geetha, and her mother immigrated to the New England coast from Chennai, India, but misses the books, family, and smells of home. She feels out of place in her new school, where she is bullied daily by smiley-faced girl surrounded by her clique. Geetha befriends Miguel, also a new student, whose scientist mother emigrated from Mexico. Finding solace in playing her flute and running along the beach, she finds a suffering young harp seal, almost strangled by a cord that has caused a deep cut. When she tells Miguel about the injured pup, the two rush to help and with the support of Miguel’s mother; they get the baby to the center for rescued seals. In daily visits with the seal, Geetha finds her voice in the healing power of her music and she recruits other students to clean the beach in this novel of friendship, overcoming bullying, and adapting to a new life. The backmatter includes an author note explaining real events that emphasize the urgency of addressing human-made pollution endangering life.  GR 5-8 

​The Trouble with Heroes. Kate Messner. (2025). Bloomsbury Children’s Books.
Thirteen-year-old Finn Connelly looks forward to his summer, but when he kicks over a gravestone of Edna Grace Thomas, “Queen of the High Peaks,” a climber of the 46 peaks of the Adirondacks, his summer plans change. He is tried as a vandal, Finn agrees to climb the peaks over the course of the summer, if Edna’s daughter vows to drop the charges. Compounding this Herculean task, he has to take Edna’s dog. A poet and a baker who loves to invent kinds of cookies, Finn is not the strong person his father was, a hero, a fireman who pulled people from the 9/11 Twin Towers bombing. Finn believes he is not a hero; he failed physical education class, cannot find a purpose for the poetry project, and misses his father as much now that he is dead as he did when he was alive, helping other people but absent from his family. The novel, written in first-person, chronicles Finn’s climbing the peaks helped by Edna’s book, as he discovers his resourcefulness in helping his family and his affection for the dog. The back matter includes an author’s note explaining her experience as a 46er. GR 5-8 

​Sandip Wilson, past-President of the CLR SIG and past-chair of the NBGS Award Committee, is a professor in the College of Science and Humanities at Husson University, Maine.

Sandip Wilson
The novels in verse reviewed in this column have characteristics that appeal to readers of all ages such as engrossing content, the visual qualities of the lines on the page, the different poetic styles and structures that authors use, and the rhythm of the language that make them good choices for both reading aloud and independent reading. 

​And Then, Boom! Lisa Fipps. (2024). Nancy Paulsen.
Eleven-year-old Joe endures the unpredictability of his mother, who regularly takes off and leaves him and his grandmother in dire circumstances. Joe adores his grandmother, who provides for and shares wisdom and humor with him despite what he calls the “and then, BOOM” times, which “are all about the moments when something happens that changes everything.” When his friend Nick notices that he and his grandmother are living in her car, he tells Joe of a mobile home for rent in his park. Boom, things are looking up, and just as suddenly, boom, life takes a devastating turn, and Joe is living alone. The back matter of this tense novel of friendship, resourcefulness, and accepting support includes a website of teaching resources and an acknowledgment of people associated with the book including Lisa Fipps’ grandmother, the model for Joe’s Grandmum. (Gr 3 Up) 

​The Boy Lost in the Maze. Joseph Coelho. Illus. by Kate Milner. (2024). Candlewick.
Seventeen-year-old Theo, who wants to locate his unknown father, writes a series of poems for his English project in which he focuses on the Greek mythological hero Theseus’ search for his father. In chapters written in multiple poetic forms from the points of view of Theo, Theseus, and the Minotaur, Joseph Coelho’s coming-of-age novel recounts the individual journeys of Theo and Theseus to find their fathers as well as the minotaur’s story of being misunderstood as a monster. After Theo meets with the man he thought was his father but is not, he realizes that his life parallels that of Theseus, who faced challenges and humiliation during his six labors. Kate Milner’s evocative illustrations, done in ink, elaborate on the characterization of their individual struggles. In the back matter, Coelho discusses the varying interpretations, including his own, of the Theseus story. (Gr 6 Up) 

​Bright Red Fruit. Safia Elhillo. (2024). Make Me a World.
Samira Abdullahi, a playful and adventurous 16-year-old Sudanese American, defies the rule-ridden adherence to cultural customs her mother and aunties want from her and is grounded except for attendance at a summer poetry workshop where she finds solace and release in writing poems. When she meets a fellow poet, Horus, in an online chat, he asks her to write a poem for him. Delighted and encouraged by this older man’s interest, sending him a poem leads Samira into a relationship she did not expect and separates her from friends who warn her about him. Happy to be secretly meeting Horus at a local poetry slam, she is shocked at his behavior and has to make decisions about her writing and associating with him in this beautiful novel about friendship, family, misguided romance, and finding one’s place in the world. (Gr 9-12) 

Deep Water. Jamie Sumner. (2024). Atheneum.
Since her depressed mother abandoned their family several months ago,12-year-old Tully Birch, who has been swimming competitively since she was six, has been secretly training to complete the 12.1-mile swim across Lake Tahoe. At six on a July morning, Tully sets out to make the swim with her best friend, Arch Novak, rowing alongside in a kayak as her spotter. She is hopeful that the news of her becoming the youngest swimmer ever to complete the Godfather swim (named for the mansion in the Godfather movie) will bring home her mother, who had always encouraged her to attempt the famous marathon challenge. During the six-hour swim, Tully reflects upon her life, training program, and relationships with her father and mother. When a storm threatens their safety on the water, Arch firmly takes a stand in spite of Tully’s opposition to ending the swim in this fast-paced verse novel about friendship, family, and the meaning of strength and commitment. (Gr 6-8)

​Force of Nature: A Novel of Rachel Carson. Ann E. Burg. Illus. by Sophie Blackall. (2024). Scholastic.
Growing up in a poor Pennsylvania family, Rachel Carson (1907-1964) began writing about the natural world at a young age. Although challenged by teachers who argued that women had few opportunities in science, Rachel studied zoology in graduate school and took a job as a marine biologist to help care for her struggling family, settling them in a house in Maine. Noted for her scientific narrative, Carson, who won the 1952 National Book Award for Nonfiction for The Sea Around Us and was a finalist for The Edge of the Sea (1956) and Silent Spring (1963), stated “Literature and science are but different sides of the same coin—both disciplines seem to illuminate life.” Ann E. Burg’s verse biography (written in first person) about this important writer, biologist, and environmental activist includes an author’s note on her research and additional information on Carson’s life and work. (Gr 3 Up) 

Isabel in Bloom. Mae Respicio. (2024). Wendy Lamb.
In 1999, 12-year-old Isabel immigrates to the US to join her mother, who left her behind at the age of five in the Philippines to become a nanny in New York. Although joyous over their reunion, Isabel feels out of place in San Francisco, where her mother has relocated. Initially an object of derision and exclusion at her new middle school, she finds a sense of home in her discovery of a jasmine plant in the derelict garden on the school grounds. With her teacher as an ally, she joins the Culinary Club, takes the lead in reviving the Garden Club, and prepares dishes she loves for a fund-raising project at the neighborhood Asian American Senior Center. Isabel comes to realize that she can create home wherever she is. Back matter includes information on Filipino immigrants, the challenges of racism, and the forms of poetry in the novel. (Gr 3 Up)

Louder Than Hunger. John Schu. (2024). Candlewick.
Jake, bullied in the sixth grade, wished he could disappear. In the seventh grade, he stopped eating, convinced by an internal Voice that he was worthless and undeserving. Now an eighth grader, Jake is receiving treatment for anorexia nervosa. While hospitalized, the Voice tells him to trust no one, so he resists help from therapists and doctors until a teacher encourages his artwork and another patient shares writing time with him. When he visits a musical theater with his mother on a day pass, Jake remembers his love of theater and wonders if he has more in his life than the Voice as he begins to learn to accept support and manage his anguish. Back matter for this gripping first-person semiautobiographical novel in verse includes an extensive author’s note on writing the novel about Jake’s “disordered thinking and eating” based on his own experiences as a young person and resources. (Gr 6 Up)

Mid-Air. Alicia D. Williams. Illus. by Danica Novgorodoff. (2024). Caitlyn Dlouhy.
Black eighth grade friends Isaiah and Darius compete with each other, although Isaiah is always the one who holds back to the more intrepid Darius. With their friend Drew, they decide to break the Guinness record of the longest bicycle wheelie on a rugged, steep hill. As they are ordered to leave the neighborhood by a stranger, Darius, not hearing Isaiah’s warning of an approaching car, is hit and killed. Isaiah keeps quiet about the loss, heeding his globe-trotting photographer father’s words to toughen up and not cry, and grows angrier as Drew distances himself. Taking his parents’ option to spend the summer with Aunt Terri and Uncle Vent in North Carolina, Isaiah finds solace and friendship in helping his great aunt with her garden and expressing his love for plants in this complex novel of overcoming sorrow and guilt, finding friendship, and embracing self-discovery. (Gr 6 Up) 

​One Big Open Sky. Lesa Cline-Ransome. (2024). Holiday House.
In 1879 Mississippi, Lettie and her family leave their home with other families, traveling by foot and covered wagon to St. Louis and then west in this historical verse novel chronicling the experiences of families during the Black Homesteader Movement. Told from the points of view of three women (dreamer Lettie with her hopeful perspective; her mother Sylvia, who worries over care for her family; and Philomena, a young companion resisting the restrictions on women), this heartful story chronicles the perils, tragedy, and hopes of the families traveling to Nebraska as they face the unknown. In an extensive author’s note, Lesa Cline-Ransome provides historical context for her story of the first great migration that occurred during the Reconstruction Era when families traveled from the South to St. Louis and points west to claim what was theirs under the Homestead Act of 1862. (Gr 3 Up) 

​Song of Freedom, Song of Dreams: A Novel in Verse. Shari Green. (2024). Andrews McMeel.
Set in Leipzig in the German Democratic Republic during the unsettled months of 1989 leading up to the Berlin Wall coming down, 16-year-old Helena and her best friend and fellow pianist, Katrin, lead comfortable lives with weekly piano lessons with Herr Weber and hopeful futures in music. When Katrin and her family do not return from their vacation to Austria on open-border day, Helena visits her friend’s apartment to find the German Stasi smashing Katrin’s piano. In this lyrical historical verse novel with many musical references, Helena keeps her dreams secret since words make a person vulnerable to arrest. Pondering what more might be possible for her family, she joins her father in the political movement against the current status in East Germany. Back matter includes an author’s note providing information on the historical period, a glossary, and selected sources. (Gr 9-12) 

​Ultraviolet. Aida Salazar. (2024). Scholastic.
Eighth grade, straight A student Elio Solis loses his heart to the lovely Camellia, an art student at his school in East Oakland, California. When he promises to stand up for her, she tells him, “I am not a cut flower” but shows her affection with a kiss that makes him see ultraviolet colors everywhere. Having learned conflicting lessons of patriarchy from his father, who cooks for his family and tends lovingly to Elio’s little sisters but relishes the violence of a cock fight, makes Elio question what being a man means. When Camellia breaks up with him for failing to show empathy when she has terrible menstrual cramps, Elio becomes hateful and vengeful toward her. Later, rethinking the toxicity of his nastiness toward her and her new boyfriend, Chava, he decides to apologize in this coming-of-age novel in verse of learning the meanings of being a man, friendship, and family. (Gr 6 Up) 

​Wings to Soar. Tina Athaide. (2024). Charlesbridge Moves.
In 1972, ten-year-old Viva, her older sister, Anna, and mother are Indian refugees exiled from Uganda to England under the regime of Idi Amin, who plan to immigrate to Canada. Miserable in an English resettlement camp, their lives become more difficult when Viva’s father does not come before they are forced to leave the camp. They move in with another family in a racist and xenophobic London community that hates immigrants and reflects the “Make Britain Great Again” campaign by jeering for her family to go back where they came from. Viva is angry when her mother does not stand up to the torments when a brick comes through the window of their tiny, dingy apartment, but the family manages to move back to the community of friends in the camp in this semiautobiographical novel of family, friendship, resilience, and new beginnings. (Gr 3 Up) 

​Sandip Wilson
With spare text and varied line breaks, novels in which the narrative is told through poetry can present stories with complex topics, themes, and issues in a format that appeals to readers and helps them understand voices, events, characters, and narrators in new ways. Nonfiction in verse, also included in this column, provides insight into other times and places.

​Good Different. Meg Eden Kuyatt. (2023). Scholastic.
Twelve-year-old autistic Selah just wants to get through seventh grade at Pepplecreek Academy and is trying to be “a Normal person” like her mother wants her to be. However, when Selah reacts to classmate Addie’s wanting to braid her hair and accidentally striking her and drawing blood, she is considered dangerous and is suspended from school for three days. Upon her return to school, Shelah finds a way to express herself when her favorite teacher has students write poetry. “My feelings are loud. Rude. / BIG. Sometimes / angry.” Using birthday tickets from her mother, Saleh attends Fantasycon where she meets other people on the autistic spectrum, who are like her “when everything feels / like it‘s pouring in / and there’s no room / for . . . feelings to go,” setting her on a path of self-discovery. The author’s note for this novel in verse celebrating differences and finding one’s place in the world includes information on Meg Eden Kuyatt’s experiences with autism, resources, and acknowledgements. (Gr 3-5) 

​​The In-Between. Katie Van Heidrich. (2023). Aladdin.
Thirteen-year-old Katie finds herself in the in-between—“when you’re in between / where you want to be and where you are, / when you’re in between what you previously had / and what you so desperately want to have back, . . .”—while her family is in crisis. She, her siblings Josh and Haley, and their mother, who is cycling through jobs, find themselves living in a room at the Extended Stay America hotel with their possessions, which have been whittled down to a precious few with the multiple changes in their lives. With lyrical lines, Katie explains her feelings in going to yet another new school, spending weekends with their father, his new wife, and their baby in their spacious home, and their unemployed mother’s searching for yet another new job. Katie finds solace and continuity in writing in her notebook. She likes to play with words and discover the meaning of new words. “Words, / after all, / have power,” and they provide “new ways of knowing / and understanding, / and being.” The back matter of this memoir in verse of forging friendship, loss and discovery, new beginnings, and perseverance includes archival photographs of the three siblings at different points in their lives with their parents. (Gr 3 Up)

​Land of Broken Promises. Jane Kuo. (2023). Quill Tree.
In this sequel to In the Beautiful Country (2022), 12-year-old Ai Shi (Anna) Zhang and her family are carving out a new life in Duarte, in the Los Angeles area, where they operate a fast-food restaurant. Anna would like to spend summer vacation returning to Taiwan for a visit or joining her friends at summer camp, but when the Zhangs discover they missed the due date for renewing their immigration status, plans for the summer change. Anna’s mother goes to San Diego for a good paying job, leaving Anna to help her father run the restaurant, in an attempt to raise enough money to hire an immigration lawyer. In the back matter, Jane Kuo explains that her experiences in the 1980s of living in the Los Angeles area as an undocumented immigrant for years before becoming a citizen served as a model for this novel, written in first-person free verse, about the resilience, perseverance, and optimism of a young Taiwanese immigrant. (Gr 3 Up) 

Miles Morales Suspended: A Spider-Man Novel. Jason Reynolds. Illus. by Zeke Peña. (2023). Caitlyn Dlouhy.
Written in a hybrid verse/prose format, this sequel to Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2017) chronicles Miles Morales’s day in ISS (In-School Suspension) at Brooklyn Visions Academy, a boarding school, as a result of breaking his desk and participating in a protest with Alicia Carson, the classmate on whom he has a crush, over racist treatment from one teacher, Mr. Chamberlain. Jason Reynolds tells the story through a third-person narrative and Miles’s first-person poems. As Miles tries to concentrate on completing the day’s class assignments, his keen spider-man senses have him hearing buzzing in the walls and seeing termites. Becoming more and more concerned about Tobin, the book-eating classmate in ISS for destroying library books, Miles soon finds himself involved in yet another high-flying heroic deed. Zeke Peña’s dramatic illustrations rendered digitally convey Tobin’s transformation and the climactic encounter between him and Miles. The acknowledgements in the back matter include information on writing the book. (Gr 6 Up) 

​Nearer My Freedom: The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano by Himself. Monica Edinger & Lesley Younge. (2023). Zest.   
This found poetry version of the life story of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) was “created using words, phrases, and quotes from text rearranged into verse” from Equiano’s autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself, originally published in 1789. Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge add informative notes and archival images tracing the historical context to the chapters. Equiano, who was born in Essaka, Benin, in what is now Nigeria, explains the rich life of the people and the horrors of abductions and trade. “Again sold. / Again carried through a number of places.” In England, at the age of 12, he became a slave for ship captains and began a seafaring career to the western hemisphere, reckoning with experiences of masters who were either duplicitous or kind and demonstrating his multiple skills including literacy. Later, serving the slave trade as a free seaman, Equiano came to understand that his freedom, which he purchased in 1766, would always be at risk and he became an abolitionist. The release of the first edition of Equiano’s autobiography was timed to "coincide with an important debate over slavery in Parliament." The back matter of Edinger and Younge’s engaging and accessible book includes a “Creating a Verse Version” section, a timeline, a glossary, source notes, a bibliography, suggestions for further reading, and an index. (Gr 9-12) 

​One Last Shot: The Story of Wartime Photographer Gerda Taro. Kip Wilson. (2023). Versify. 
In this historical verse novel written as a first-person narrative, Kip Wilson tells the life story of Gerda Taro (1910-1937), born Gerda Pohorylle into a Polish Jewish immigrant family in Stuttgart, Germany. At the age of 16, she attended a boarding school in Switzerland for a year where she proved independent in her interests and became fascinated with cameras before returning to Germany. Released after imprisonment for distributing anti-Nazi propaganda, and holding a Polish passport in a country that was becoming more perilous for Jews, she fled to Paris in 1933 where she soon realized that Paris was also dangerous when she heard the French say foreigners “were stealing French jobs.” Her life changed when she met and fell in love with Hungarian photographer André Friedmann (1913-1954) with whom she pursued her interest in cameras and photography while they worked under the names Gerda Taro and Robert Capa. Her love and radical politics took Gerda on assignments to document the growing conflict in Spain where, in 1937, she tragically became the first woman photojournalist ever killed in combat. Extensive back matter includes a “Dramatis Personae” section with brief biographical notes; an author’s note in which Wilson explains her inspiration and the fact-or-fiction aspects of this historical verse novel, the context of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and Gerda Taro’s legacy; acknowledgments; selected sources; and a glossary of German, French, and Spanish words. (Gr 9-12)

​The Order of Things. Kaija Langley. (2023). Nancy Paulsen.
April Jackson lives with her mother in a Boston apartment across the hall from Zander (Zee) Ellis and his father. Best friends who share a love of music, Zee is a violin prodigy and April, who has always dreamed of being a drummer, is taking lessons from Papa Zee on a drum kit in the Ellis’s apartment. April and Zee have been inseparable their whole lives, but now Zee attends a Boston STEAM charter school with an emphasis on the arts while April starts sixth grade at their old school and finds herself paired for class projects with awkward Astrea Curtis. When Zee faints while practicing for a major solo, begs April to keep silent after another episode, and later is found dead at school, she is grief-stricken and feels responsible because of her promise to say nothing. April makes discoveries about herself as she deals with her grief and comes to terms with changes in her family and friendships in this richly detailed novel of deep emotions and shifts in the order of things with Kaija Langley’s sensitively crafted short poems. The author’s note includes information on sudden cardiac arrest. (Gr 6-8)

​The Song of Us. Kate Fussner. (2023) Katherine Tegen.
Seventh-grade student Olivia, co-founder of the Poetry Club with her friend Lexi, promises to “work wonders with my words / . . . master meter / draft delight” this year but is mesmerized when a beautiful, new student, Eden, a musician, joins the club. In alternating voices, Olivia and Eden rhapsodize about their growing attraction for one another, complete with kisses after school, but their intense attraction changes to conflict in face of Eden’s secrecy about her identity and interests in other friends and boys, and Olivia’s open devotion to Eden. Olivia, who lives with a depressed mother, and Eden, who lives with a silent, distant father since her mother left, do not talk to their parents about their relationship, which grows in complexity. This refashioning of the Greek myth “Orpheus and Eurydice” is a story of love and loss and finding ways to heal and transform oneself. (Gr 6 Up) 

​Spin. Rebecca Caprara. (2023). Atheneum.
Living in ancient Thrace, 15-year-old Arachne, whose mother is a skilled weaver and herbalist and father is a master dyer, learns and practices the art of spinning with patience. Woven through this retelling of the myth of Arachne in Rebecca Capara’s lush verse novel are elements of other Greek myths as Arachne wonders why women such as Pandora and Medea are blamed and punished for mishaps while men “are celebrated / for much worse—their violence . . . / revered as necessary, noble acts.” She is angered by the liberty of men that overpowers women. As her mother teaches Arachne the art of weaving and collecting and using herbs, she tells her ancient myths, advising Arachne “to question / the stories you hear.” When Photis, her younger brother, dies falling from a tree he climbs and in unfathomable grief, her mother sickens and dies and her father becomes distant, Arachne leaves for Colophon, where she trades her beautiful tapestries. After the colorful realistic depiction of people and daily scenes in Arachne’s tapestries becomes more celebrated than the reverence to the gods rendered in Athena’s tapestry, the goddess Athena challenges her to a weaving competition. The curse, precipitated by Athena’s wrath toward the young weaver, allows Arachne to help women in a way she didn’t expect in this novel of resourcefulness, courage, and standing up for oneself. The back matter includes information on source material in the acknowledgments. (Gr 9-12) 

​When Clouds Touch Us. Thanhhà Lại . (2023). Harper.
In this sequel to Inside Out and Back Again (2011), 12-year-old Hà recalls the family’s fleeing the war in Vietnam two years ago to a safer, better life in America as her mother tells her and her brothers that they will be leaving Alabama for Texas for better employment opportunities. Hà objects to the thought of leaving her friends and the school where she is now settled. In this verse novel, she recounts the year of the family’s uprooting from Alabama, taking with them one pillowcase of clothes each, a bare minimum of possessions, and “treasures from across the sea,” and starting all over again in Texas in a new school where she tries to develop new friendships and meets new challenges in learning English while holding onto the traditions of her Vietnamese culture. This thought-provoking novel shows hope in creating a new life while honoring the past. “I ache to know / how much longer / until clouds touch us, / ending refugee living.” The back matter includes an author’s note explaining the rationale for the sequel and writing in verse. (Gr 3 Up) 

Sandip Wilson is a professor in the School of Education and Department of English of Husson University, Bangor, Maine, and serves as President of the CL/R SIG 2022-2024.