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| Roz Chast’s Poetry Month poster – request it here! |
I like to do the occasional link roundup, and since it’s National Poetry Month, I thought it would be fun to revisit our past reviews of novels in verse. It’s not a genre we tend to focus on–I’ll freely admit that I don’t gravitate toward novels in verse, so most of the reviews that we’ve posted in that genre are Tanita’s. Of course, plenty of readers do not only gravitate toward, but even prefer, novels in verse. YA authors such as Ellen Hopkins and Sonya Sones are veterans of the genre, of course, and greatly popular among young adult and grown adult readers alike. I’m not even able to address all of the wonderful authors of verse books for tween readers and younger, from Naomi Shihab Nye to the Kidlitosphere’s own Kelly Fineman and Laura Salas.
In any case, I rounded up what we do have in terms of reviews of novels in verse or heavily featuring verse in the storytelling:
Hesse, Karen: Witness
Koertge, Ron: Coaltown Jesus and Shakespeare Bats Cleanup
Koyczan, Shane: To This Day
McCormick, Patricia: Sold
Sandell, Lisa: The Weight of the Sky
Venkatraman, Padma: A Time to Dance
Wein, Elizabeth: Rose Under Fire
Wolff, Virginia Euwer: Make Lemonade
This was a useful exercise for me because I really need to make more of an effort to read the occasional novel in verse. I know there are fantastic ones out there, and when I do read them I generally enjoy them, but for some reason I’m often reluctant to pick them up in the first place. I guess I usually prefer stand-alone poems. Ah, well, it is what it is…
I'd add my old standby Make Lemonade which I clearly didn't mark so you could find – it's blank verse, and was something I really enjoyed reading to my students – I find that I read novels in verse when I don't even think I gravitate toward them! But I keep finding them, and they're usually really good.