Novels in Verse

     Novels in Verse

     

    All the Broken Pieces, by Ann E. Burg: Two years after being airlifted out of Vietnam in 1975, Matt Pin is haunted by the terrible secret he left behind and, now, in a loving adoptive home in the United States, a series of profound events forces him to confront his past.


     

    Wicked Girls, by Stephanie Hemphill: A fictionalized account, told in verse, of the Salem witch trials, told from the perspective of three young women living in Salem in 1692--Mercy Lewis, Margaret Walcott, and Ann Putnam, Jr.


     

    Exposed, by Kimberly Marcus: High school senior Liz, a gifted photographer, can no longer see things clearly after her best friend accuses Liz's older brother of a terrible crime.

     

    After the Kiss, by Terra Elan McVoy: In alternating chapters, two high school senior girls in Atlanta reveal their thoughts and frustrations as they go through their final semester of high school.


     

    Street Love, by Walter Dean Myers: This story told in free verse is set against a background of street gangs and poverty in Harlem in which seventeen-year-old African American Damien takes a bold step to ensure that he and his new love will not be separated.


     

    One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies, by Sonya Sones: Fifteen-year-old Ruby Milliken leaves her best friend, her boyfriend, her aunt, and her mother's grave in Boston and flies to Los Angeles to live with her father, a famous movie star who divorced her mother before Ruby was born.


     

    What My girlfriend Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones:  Fourteen-year-old Robin Murphy is so unpopular at high school that his name is slang for "loser," and so when he begins dating the beautiful and popular Sophie her reputation plummets, but he finds acceptance as a student in a drawing class at Harvard.


     

    Love & Leftovers, by Sarah Tregay: 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 Idaho, where all of her relationships have become strained.


     

    The Watch that Ends the Night, by Allan Wolf: Recreates the 1912 sinking of the Titanic as observed by millionaire John Jacob Astor, a beautiful young Lebanese refugee finding first love, "Unsinkable" Molly Brown, Captain E.J. Smith, and others including the iceberg itself.


     

    Ghosting,  by Edith Pattou: A high school teenage prank goes horrifically awry.  Alcohol, guns, and a dare. With tragic outcomes altering lives forever, a grisly and unfortunate scenario all too familiar from current real-life headlines. But victims can also become survivors and we see how, despite pain and guilt, they can reach out to one another, find a new equilibrium, and survive.


     

    Like Water on Stone, by Dana Walrath: Based on actual events, this novel in verse relates the tale of siblings Sosi, Shahen, and Mariam who survive the Armenian genocide of 1915 by escaping from Turkey alone over the mountains.


     

    The Kiss of Broken Glass, by Madeleine Kuderick:  A tale told through evocative verse chronicles a mandatory seventy-two-hour psychiatric evaluation of a teen who has been caught cutting herself in an effort to feel alive.


     

    Two Girls Staring at the Ceiling, Lucy Frank:  In this novel in verse, two very different girls bond while hospitalized for Crohn's disease.


     

    The Weight of Water, Sarah Crossan:Twelve-year-old Kasienka and her mother have immigrated to Coventry, England from Poland, searching for Kasienka's father, but everyone is unfriendly except for an African neighbor and a boy Kasienka meets at the swimming pool, which is her only refuge from an alien society.


     

    Audacity, Melodie Crowder: A historical fiction novel in verse detailing the life of Clara Lemlich and her struggle for women's labor rights in the early 20th century in New York.