Novels in Verse

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) 

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​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) 

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​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) 

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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)

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​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) 

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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)

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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)

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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) 

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​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) 

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​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) 

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​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) 

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​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) 

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Sandip Wilson is a professor of literacy education and English at Husson University, Bangor, Maine, and serves as President of the CL/R SIG.