It's Poetry Month! Take a closer look at four MG Novels in Verse from #the21ders! #IMWAYR

Happy Poetry Month!

I'd like to do something a little different for National Poetry Month. I'm taking a closer look at the four MG debut authors in #the21ders who have written novels in verse (and yes, I'm one of them!). See if you can guess what the four of us have in common besides being debut authors and writing MG novels in verse. If you can't figure it out, I'll let you know at the end!*

And because it's Poetry Month, I'm taking a closer look at the poetry itself. Yes, these are novels, but they're also written in free verse (although mine also has a villanelle and a few rhyming couplets and tercets, plus two haiku). 

How do you tell a story in verse? 

Each poem should stand alone and at the same time move the story forward. It's a challenge, yes, but one that verse novelists love. In a verse novel, every word counts. What's left out is just as important as what is included. White space plays a huge role in a verse novel. 

ALONE by Megan E. Freeman (January 2021, Simon and Schuster, for ages 10 and up)

I wrote briefly about this book back in November, in a post about the first 2021 debut novels I'd read. But that short paragraph didn't do it justice! This is a compelling read, and free verse is perfect for conveying the protagonist's desperate situation and emotions. 

Maddie wakes up alone, after her region has been mysteriously evacuated overnight. Something terrible has happened, with transports carrying everyone to some undisclosed location. Maddie's parents are divorced and each remarried.  So Maddie's mother thinks she's with her father. Maddie's father thinks she's with her mother. There are hints of a possible coup, an event so unprecedented that cell phones are left behind. The internet disappears. Television goes silent. 

Alarmed, Maddie tries everything she can think of to contact her family, and finally begins to accept that she is truly alone, and must learn to survive until her family returns. Luckily, she has the company of a neighbor's dog, also left behind, and she manages to find food and water and books to read. Years go by. The author was inspired to write this after reading ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS with her daughter.

Not only is the story compelling, but the verse is too. It's efficient and intense and emotional. Perfect for conveying Maddie's state of mind in her unusual situation. 

Some of my favorite lines:  

From p. 148:  "Empty houses aren't home."

From p. 202: "I would give anything 

                       to have a real, live grown-up

                        take over all the worry and fear and work

                        that I've been doing for the past year

                        and just let me fall apart."

From p. 263:  "Except for hawks circling the sky

                        I am the only movement

                        on the entire landscape."

Visit Megan's website

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STARFISH by Lisa Fipps (March, 2021, Nancy Paulsen Books, for ages 10 to 13)

This book deserves all the starred reviews it has received. A gorgeous and important novel in verse that tackles a subject we all need to think about: fat-shaming. Ellie is teased and bullied because of her size, and even her mother never stops badgering her to lose weight. Fortunately, Ellie has allies: her new neighbor Catalina (whose entire Latinx family welcomes Ellie without judgment), Ellie's father, who only wants his daughter to be happy, and a wise therapist.

I love that this book shows the positive side of therapy. So important for kids to know this!

How Ellie learns to believe in herself and her right to take up space makes for an inspiring and poignant read. 

The free verse gets right to the core of Ellie. It's raw and heartbreaking, but it also sparkles with humor and lots and lots of heart.

Some of my favorite lines: 
 

From p. 31, opening lines of the poem, Lifesaving Librarians:

                     "The library is my safe harbor since

                      I dare not go into the cafeteria alone,

                      a whale surrounded by starving sharks."

And the closing lines of that same poem: 

                    "It's unknown how many students' lives

                     librarians have saved

                      by welcoming loners at lunch."

Visit Lisa's website

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UNSETTLED by Reem Faruqi (May 11, 2021, Harper, for ages 8 to 12)

Nurah and her family move from Karachi, Pakistan to Peachtree City, Georgia, for her father's new job. Nurah wants desperately to blend in, but her accent, and her way of dressing, make her stand out. She has no friends, and eats lunch alone under the stairwell, until she meets Stahr at swimming tryouts. Stahr also covers up her arms and legs, but for a different reason. Stahr has a tragic secret of her own. 

Nurah and her older brother Owais both join the swim team. In the water, Nurah feels like she belongs, even if she's not as good at swimming as Owais is. He's the star athlete in the family. But after a terrorist attack, bullies go after Owais. Can this gentle, peace-loving family survive in America? 

Verse is the perfect way to tell this heartwrenching and heartwarming story. Faruqi's verse is spare and luminous. I would love more than anything to quote from this beautiful novel, but I read an ARC, so I'm not supposed to quote from it. 

Take my word for it. 

Exquisite metaphors fill these pages. And the way the book is divided into parts, from Part One, Uprooting, to Part Two, Replanting, and on through to Budding, Sprouting, etc. gives you a hint of the beauty that blooms within these pages!

Visit Reem's website

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EVERYWHERE BLUE by Joanne Rossmassler Fritz (June 1, 2021, Holiday House, ages 8 to 12)

When twelve-year-old Maddie's older brother vanishes from his college campus, her carefully ordered world falls apart. Nothing will fill the void of her beloved oldest sibling. Meanwhile Maddie's older sister reacts by staying out late, and her parents are always distracted by the search for Strum. Drowning in grief and confusion, the family's musical household falls silent.

Scared and on her own, Maddie picks up the pieces of her family's fractured lives. Maybe her parents aren't who she thought they were. Maybe her nervous thoughts and compulsive counting mean she needs help. And maybe finding Strum won't solve everything—but she knows he's out there, and she has to try.

Since this is my own book, and also because it won't be out until June, I won't quote from it, but I will give you a few teasers. 

All of  my verses have titles and some of my favorites are: 

I Am a Walking Fraction

 

Butterfly Dreams

The Trouble with Onions

Inside the Stomach of the Wolf. 

Hope that intrigues you enough to want to read my book! 

Here's my website. Sign up for my occasional newsletter (in fact, it's so occasional, it hasn't even started yet!).

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*Have you figured it out yet? What else we all have in common?

Look at our last names.  Freeman, Fipps, Faruqi, Fritz

I find it fascinating that the four of us, who have each written a debut novel in verse that releases in 2021, and who never heard of each other before 2020, just happen to all have last names that begin with the letter F. 

Is this the Twilight Zone? 

Or as Lisa said on Twitter in January, is the universe filing itself like a library?

What do YOU think?

#IMWAYR is a weekly blog hop hosted by Kellee at Unleashing Readers and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts. Visit their blogs to see all the participants. You can also follow the hashtag on Twitter!

April is National Poetry Month -- how do you celebrate?

Sadly, I've neglected reading poetry during this national month celebrating Poetry. But now I'm reading an inspiring novel in verse. 

Does that count?

From portersquarebooks.com 

White Rose by Kip Wilson (April 2, 2019, Versify/HMH, ages 12 and up)

Synopsis (from Indiebound): Disillusioned by the propaganda of Nazi Germany, Sophie Scholl, her brother, and his fellow soldiers formed the White Rose, a group that wrote and distributed anonymous letters criticizing the Nazi regime and calling for action from their fellow German citizens. The following year, Sophie and her brother were arrested for treason and interrogated for information about their collaborators. This debut novel recounts the lives of Sophie and her friends and highlights their brave stand against fascism in Nazi Germany.

Why I recommend it: The verse is spare and simple and gorgeously written. Interestingly, the narrative jumps back and forth in time, but even my injured brain is having no trouble following it. Keep in mind this is YA. It's a somewhat difficult, though perhaps timely, subject.

Bonus: This novel in verse was written by a young woman I met at the Highlights Foundation in 2017. So proud of you, Kip!

Favorite lines (so far, from p. 46):  

                                        It's been five years since
                                        Herr Hitler's thundering rise
                                        to power, and
                                        in that time so much has
                                        changed in our small city:
      
                                                  red flags draped
                                                             over offices, schools, homes
                                                  armed soldiers blocking entrance to
                                                             Jewish businesses
                                                  thick, hard dread
                                                              spilling over the streets
                                                              sharp as glass.


________________________________________


If you're looking for more traditional posts for National Poetry Month:

Please visit Jan Godown Annino at Bookseedstudio and Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise.

(And coincidentally, I met them both at Highlights, in 2016!)

CATCHING A STORY FISH by Janice N. Harrington for Poetry Month and Diversity Monday

Sorry for my absence but I've been dealing with family issues and health issues, as well as working on revisions for the Advanced Novels in Verse workshop I'll be attending at Highlights in June.

Welcome to another Diversity Monday. It's also Poetry Month, so I'm celebrating both at once with this lovely book. Thanks to a librarian friend from the 2016 Novels in Verse Workshop for introducing me to this one.

Catching a Storyfish by Janice N. Harrington (September 2016, Wordsong, 224 pages, ages 8 to 12)

Synopsis (from Indiebound): Keet knows the only good thing about moving away from her Alabama home is that she'll live near her beloved grandfather. When Keet starts school, it's even worse than she expected, as the kids tease her about her southern accent. Now Keet, who can "talk the whiskers off a catfish," doesn't want to open her mouth. Slowly, though, while fishing with her grandfather, she learns the art of listening. Gradually, she makes her first new friend. But just as she's beginning to settle in, her grandfather has a stroke, and even though he's still nearby, he suddenly feels ever-so-far-away. Keet is determined to reel him back to her by telling him stories; in the process she finds her voice and her grandfather again. This lyrical and deeply emotional novel-in-verse celebrates the power of story and of finding one's individual voice.

Why I recommend it: This is gorgeous. A warm and moving celebration of poetry, words, and voice. There's a compelling story here, told with plenty of humor and compassion, as Keet adjusts to her new life. But the book is also a word-feast, using many different forms of poetry. Concrete poetry, haiku, haibun, narrative poems, and even the difficult-to-write forms of pantoum (repeats the second and fourth line of each quatrain as the first and third line of the next) and contrapuntal, which can be read in three ways (the left column one poem, the right column another poem and when read together, left to right, there's a third poem!). A poetry glossary at the back explains it all.

Favorite lines (from JUST THE RIGHT SPOT, p. 39):   

                            Grandpa knows my tongue
                            is wiggly as a wiggle-worm
                            and quick as a mosquito
                            so wherever we look, he says, "Shhhhh.
                            Shhhh. The fish will hear you."


Bonus: Perfect for classroom lessons on different forms of poetry.

THE CROSSOVER by Kwame Alexander: Celebrating Poetry Month with Novels in Verse

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander (2014, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 237 pages, for ages 9 to 13)

Synopsis (from Indiebound): "With a bolt of lightning on my kicks . . .The court is SIZZLING. My sweat is DRIZZLING. Stop all that quivering. Cuz tonight I m delivering, " announces dread-locked, 12-year old Josh Bell. He and his twin brother Jordan are awesome on the court. But Josh has more than basketball in his blood, he's got mad beats, too, that tell his family's story in verse, in this fast and furious middle grade novel of family and brotherhood.


Why I recommend it:  This is so much more than poetry. The words practically explode off the page. The poems vary from rap to free verse to Basketball Rules to definitions of Josh's vocabulary words. So much imagination and artistry went into the writing, it's easy to see why this won the Newbery in January 2015 and was also named a Coretta Scott King Honor book. I'm not even a basketball fan, but I loved this book.

Favorite lines (from a poem called The Second Half on page 181):
                             
                         My brother is
                         Superman tonight.
                         Sliding
                         and Gliding
                         into rare air,
                         lighting up the sky


Bonus: This isn't just a novel about basketball and sibling rivalry. It's about a close-knit, loving family having to accept the father's illness.

What poetry are you reading for Poetry Month?

INSIDE OUT & BACK AGAIN: Celebrating Poetry Month with Novels in Verse

Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai (2013, HarperCollins, 262 pages, for ages 8 to 12)

Synopsis (from the publisher):  For all the ten years of her life, Hà has only ever known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, and the warmth of her friends close by. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. Hà and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope—toward America.

Why I recommend it: The text is spare, with lots of white space on the page. Yet the imagery is gorgeous and colorful. I could taste the papaya, see the cramped boat on which they escape, feel Hà's anger and frustration at leaving home and starting over. Hà's voice is honest and childlike. Based loosely on the author's own childhood, the story is a deeply moving one. Like Hà, Thanhha Lai fled Vietnam with her family when she was ten, and moved to Alabama. Today she lives in Kansas.

The paperback edition includes suggested activities and an interview with the author.

Thanhha Lai's website

Favorite lines: (from a poem called Twisting Twisting on p. 37)
                       
                          Mother measures
                          rice grains
                          left in the bin.
                          Not enough to last
                          till payday
                          at the end of the month.

                          Her brows
                          twist like laundry
                          being wrung dry.

Bonus: Use this as a starting point for classroom lessons about the Vietnam War, and timely discussions about refugees and prejudice.

Have you read Inside Out & Back Again or any other novels in verse? What did you think of them?