Staff Picks
Novels in Verse
- Sara M.
- Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Collection
Once upon a time, every book was also a poem. Gilgamesh, the Iliad, the Mahabharata, Beowulf - all our oldest stories are told in verse. As prose took over printed books, stories told in verse became rarer. It's hard to write a book of poetry that tells a story but is still great poetry; these novels for teens and adults do it well.
The Poet X
Published in 2018
Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.
The Crossover
Published in 2014
Fourteen-year-old twin basketball stars Josh and Jordan wrestle with highs and lows on and off the court as their father ignores his declining health.
The Place Between Breaths
Published in 2018
Grace, sixteen, fears that she will succumb to the schizophrenia that took her mother away, while she and her father work for a genetics lab rushing to find a cure.
Sharp Teeth
Published in 2008
"An ancient race of lycanthropes has survived to the present day, and its numbers are growing as the initiated convince L.A.'s down and out to join their pack. Paying no heed to moons, full or otherwise, they change from human to canine at will--and they're bent on domination at any cost. Caught in the middle are Anthony, a kind-hearted, besotted dogcatcher, and the girl he loves, a female werewolf who has abandoned her pack. Anthony has no idea that she's more than she seems, and she wants to keep it that way. But her efforts to protect her secret lead to murderous results"--Publisher.
Autobiography of Red
A Novel in Verse
Published in 1998
A novel in verse on a homosexual romance between two boys. Geryon "understood / that people need / acts of attention from one another, does it really matter which acts? / He was fourteen. / 'Sex is a way of getting to know someone, ' / Herakles had said. He was sixteen." There is a strong mixture of whimsy and sadness in Geryon's story. He is tormented as a boy by his brother, escapes to a parallel world of photography, and falls in love with Herakles--a golden young man who leaves Geryon at the peak of infatuation. Geryon retreats ever further into the world created by his camera, until that glass house is suddenly and irrevocably shattered by Herakles' return. Running throughout is Geryon's fascination with his wings, the color red, and the fantastic accident of who he is.
Jazz Owls
A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots
Published in 2018
In early 1940s Los Angeles, Mexican Americans Marisela and Lorena work in canneries all day, then jitterbug with sailors all night with their zoot suit wearing younger brother, Ray, as escort until the night racial violence leads to murder. Includes historical note.
Out of the Dust
Published in 1997
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.
People Kill People
Published in 2018
Follows six teenagers as they are brought into close contact over the course of one tense week, in a town with political and personal tensions that build until one fires a fatal gunshot.
Blood Water Paint
Published in 2018
In Renaissance Italy, Artemisia Gentileschi endures the subjugation of women that allows her father to take credit for her extraordinary paintings, rape and the ensuing trial, and torture, buoyed by her deceased mother's stories of strong women of the Bible.
Pale Fire
A Novel
Published in 1989
Nabokov's parody, half poem and half commentary on the poem, deals with the escapades of the deposed king of Zemala in a New England college town.
Long Way Down
Published in 2017
As Will, fifteen, sets out to avenge his brother Shawn's fatal shooting, seven ghosts who knew Shawn board the elevator and reveal truths Will needs to know.
One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies
Published in 2004
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. My name is Ruby This book is about me. It tells the deeply hideous story of what happens when my mother dies and I'm dragged three thousand miles away from my gorgeous boyfriend, Ray, to live in L.A. with my father, who I've never even met because he's such a scumbag that he divorced my mom before I was born. The only way I've ever even seen him is in the movies, since he's this mega-famous actor who's been way too busy trying to win Oscars to even visit me once in fifteen years. Everyone loves my father. Everyone but me.
Love & Leftovers
A Novel in Verse
Published in 2012
When her father starts dating a man, fifteen-year-old Marcie's depressed mother takes her to New Hampshire but just as Marcie starts falling for a great guy her father brings her back to Iowa, where all of her relationships have become strained.
Zorgamazoo
Published in 2008
Imaginative and adventurous Katrina eludes her maniacal guardian to help Morty, a member of a vanishing breed of zorgles, with his quest to uncover the fate of the fabled zorgles of Zorgmazoo as well as of other creatures that seem to have disappeared from the earth.
Brown Girl Dreaming
Published in 2014
"Jacqueline Woodson, one of today's finest writers, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse. 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. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson's eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become. Praise for Jacqueline Woodson: Ms. Woodson writes with a sure understanding of the thoughts of young people, offering a poetic, eloquent narrative that is not simply a story. but a mature exploration of grown-up issues and self-discovery."-The New York Times Book Review"-- Provided by publisher.
Finding Baba Yaga
A Short Novel in Verse
Published in 2018
In this contemporary poetic retelling of the iconic myth, a teenage girl fleeing an abusive home takes refuge in the woods with a fairy-tale witch.