Novels In Verse booklist

This is a very popular genre for students, and novels in verse has been around for quite some time.  I remember the first one I ever read and was hooked as well.  They're short, easy to read, and pack a powerful punch.  Most seem to be based on character's voices, but whether they are or not, these are complex reads.  Here's a list of 34 great novels in verse I've read:

Hard Hit  by Ann Turner (2006) - A rising high school baseball star faces his most difficult challenge when his father is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

One Night by Margaret Wild (2002)- a teenaged girl decides to have her baby and care for it on her own after a "one night stand" results in pregnancy

All the Broken Pieces by Ann Burg (2009)- 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.

A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl by Tanya Lee Stone (2006)- Josie, Nicolette, and Aviva all fall for the same sexy high school senior, and while they each make different choices, they're all changed by their experiences of love and sex.


Sold by Patricia McCormick (2006)-  Lakshmi, a thirteen-year-old girl from Nepal, is sold into prostitution in India.

Because I Am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas (2009)- The youngest of three siblings, fourteen-year-old Anke feels both relieved and neglected that her father abuses her brother and sister but ignores her, but when she catches him with one of her friends, she finally becomes angry enough to take action.


Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall by Wendy Mass (2007)- After an accident in gym class puts sixteen-year-old Tessa into a coma, she re-evaluates her life by visiting the mall stores where significant events in her life took place.



Walking on Glass by Alma Fullerton (2007)- A teenage boy recounts, in a free verse journal, his attempts to come to terms with the realities of his mother's near-death coma.


Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham (2007)- After a shark attack causes the amputation of her right arm, fifteen-year-old Jane, an aspiring artist, struggles to come to terms with her loss and the changes it imposes on her day-to-day life and her plans for the future.




Shakespeare Makes the Playoffs by Ron Koertge (2010)- Fourteen-year-old Kevin Boland, poet and first baseman, is torn between his cute girlfriend--Mira--and Amy, who is funny, plays Chopin on the piano, and is also a poet.

Life on the Refrigerator Door by Alice Kuipers (2007)-  mother and daughter, who mainly communicate through short notes left on the refrigerator door, experience a life changing event when one of them is diagnosed with breast cancer.

Street Love by Walter Dean Myers (2006)- Damien, a seventeen-year-old from Harlem, takes a bold step to ensure that he and his new love, Junice, will not be separated.

Kissing Tennessee and other stories from the stardust dance by Kathi Appelt (2000)- Graduating eighth graders relate their stories of love and heartbreak that have brought them to Dogwood Junior High's magical Stardust Dance.


Sonya Sones:
Stop Pretending (1999) - A younger sister has a difficult time adjusting to life after her older sister has a mental breakdown.


What My Mother Doesn't Know (2001) - Sophie describes her relationships with a series of boys as she searches for Mr. Right.



What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know (2007) - Artistic fourteen-year-old Robin Murphy is so unpopular at high school that his name is slang for "loser," so when he begins dating the beautiful and popular Sophie, her reputation plummets.


One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies (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.


 
Mel Glenn:
Foreign Exchange (1999) - When students from big-city Tower High School spend a weekend in rural Hudson Landing with the students of the local high school, an African-American boy from the city is accused of murdering a local white girl.

Jump Ball (1997)- Tells the story of a high school basketball team's season through a series of poems reflecting the feelings of students, their families, teachers, and coaches.


Split Image (2000) - A series of poems reflect the thoughts and feelings of various people-- students, the librarian, parents, the principal, and others-- about the seemingly perfect Laura Li and her life inside and out of Tower High School.


Who Killed Mr. Chippendale? (1996)- Free verse poems describe the reactions of students, colleagues, and others when a high school teacher is shot to death as the school day begins.


The Taking of Room 114 (1997) - A series of poems reflect the thoughts of school officials, parents, police, and especially a class of seniors who have been taken hostage by their high school history teacher.
 
Ellen Hopkins:
Crank (2004) - Kristina Georgia Snow's life is turned upside-down, when she visits her absentee father, gets turned on to the drug "crank", becomes addicted, and is led down a desperate path that threatens her mind, soul, and her life.




Glass (2007)- Kristina is determined to break her addiction to drugs in order to keep her newborn child; but when she fails and the pull becomes too strong, her greatest fears are quickly realized.

Burned (2006) - Seventeen-year-old Pattyn, the eldest daughter in a large Mormon family, is sent to her aunt's Nevada ranch for the summer where she temporarily escapes her alcoholic, abusive father and finds love and acceptance, only to lose everything

Identical (2008) - Sixteen-year-old identical twin daughters of a district court judge and a candidate for the United States House of Representatives, Kaeleigh and Raeanne Gardella desperately struggle with secrets that have already torn them and their family apart.


Impulse (2007) - Three teens who meet at Reno, Nevada's Aspen Springs mental hospital after each has attempted suicide connect with each other in a way they never have with their parents or anyone else in their lives.


Tricks (2009) - Collects five stories about three girls and two boys who question how they feel about themselves while learning about love

Fallout (2010) - Written in free verse, explores how three teenagers try to cope with the consequences of their mother's addiction to crystal meth and its effects on their lives.


Stephanie Hemphill -
Things Left Unsaid (2005) - After a lifetime of conforming to the image of what her parents and high school friends want her to be, Sarah must come to terms with her own identity when her destructive best friend tries to commit suicide. Told in the form of free-verse poems.


Wicked Girls (2010) - 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.


Lisa Schroeder -
Chasing Brooklyn (2010) - As teenagers Brooklyn and Nico work to help each other recover from the deaths of Brooklyn's boyfriend--Nico's brother Lucca--and their friend Gabe, the two begin to rediscover their passion for life, and a newly blossoming passion for one another.


Far From You (2009) - A novel-in-verse about sixteen-year-old Ali's reluctant road trip with her stepmother and new baby sister, and the terror that ensues after they end up lost in the snow-covered woods.


I Heart You, You Haunt Me ( 2008)- A verse novel in which fifteen-year-old Ava, feeling guilty over the role she believes she played in her boyfriend Jackson's death, experiences a whole new range of emotions when she realizes he is back from the dead.