If you are like me (Amber), you avoid picking up a book of poetry for fear your high school English teachers’ rules about analyzing poetry start floating through your head. You might enjoy Shel Silverstein or other silly kid poems or even know to appreciate music for its poetry, but a book of poetry is not really your thing. Well, that changed when I started reading verse novels. I remember reading a few verse novels as a kid such as Heartbeat and Love that Dog by Sharon Creech, but it wasn’t until college that I really started reading and enjoying verse novels. So, today’s genre starter list is about verse novels.
What is a verse novel? A verse novel is a novel written in verse, like a poem. The poems may rhyme or not; we would call them free verse poems. The author tells the story in poem form. Verse novels tend to be faster reads than a regular novel, but easier to grasp than a traditional poem. Below are some of the best verse novels to read if you want to get started reading the genre.
The Crossover by Kwame Alexander. Alexander is known for his verse novels that often feature middle school-age boys and sports. The Crossover was the first Kwame Alexander book that I read. It features twin brothers who love basketball. Their father was a professional basketball player and basketball is their life. That is, until one of the brothers becomes interested in girls. Things are changing as the boys are in middle school; through the novel the brothers learn life isn’t about winning.
Wicked Girls by Stephanie Hemphill is a fictionalized retelling of the Salem Witch Trials. This verse novel is told from the perspective of three young girls, Ann Putnam Jr., Mercy Lewis, and Margaret Walcott. The girls take advantage of Ann’s father’s claim of witchcraft in the village. As accusations about witchcraft mount, the girls must decide if they can tell the truth before it’s too late.
Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo tells the story of Xiomara (X), a fifteen-year-old girl in Harlem. X uses poetry as a way to let out emotions, from a crush on a boy to feeling unseen and differences in beliefs from her mother. Things start changing for X when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club.
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson is an autobiographical children’s verse novel. Woodson shares her childhood memories of growing up as an African American during the 1960s and 1970s in New York and South Carolina.
Starfish by Lisa Fipps. Twelve-year-old Ellie has been bullied and shamed for being big her whole life by everyone but her dad. She is in therapy to deal with her weight issues and her mom is always rationing her food. Ellie thus lives by a list of fat girl rules that help her stay unnoticed, but with the help of a new therapist and new neighbor, Ellie is learning to be confident and deal with her emotions and bullies appropriately.
Cold Skin by Stephen Herrick is a mystery novel in verse. Set in a mining town in Australia, Eddie looks for the answers to a murder of a local girl. Everyone in town is a suspect; told in alternating points of view, readers learn about the town’s people and who really could be responsible for killing one of their own.
Look Both Ways is an award-winning novel written by Jason Reynolds who is known for his verse novels. Look Both Ways shows the journeys of ten students going home after school. Although each chapter is about a different student, Reynolds weaves a connected story about detours we see on our way home.
Verse novels are great because this genre crosses into other genres, from biographies and nonfiction to mystery and realistic fiction. The Union Library has many verse novels in both our Recreational Reading and Juvenile collections. I hope you come to enjoy verse novels as much as I have.
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