I read some super novels in verse that span genres and audiences for this month!
The first features gaming, grieving, transgendered Ben Bee (later Ben Y) and their school "Typing Club" members led by their beloved librarian-turned-teacher.
Two verse novels feature survival tales, Alone, which is speculative (i.e. not based in real events), and The Canyon's Edge, which is set in my very own Arizona and features as close to real desert canyon conditions as the author could research.
Starfish deals with body shape acceptance, and Everywhere Blue has a happy ending that many missing persons cases unfortunately never share.
The Lost Language is a masterfully crafted MG tale of two friends growing apart but ultimately reaffirming their friendship over the crisis of languages going extinct.
And I offer my last :-( Reading Roles Pages for a William Shakespeare's Star Wars book: The Merry Rise of Skywalker, Book the Ninth. Written entirely in iambic pentameter, these plays by Ian Doescher are absolutely fantastic for a class readers theater (check out my teaching post, Fun with Star Wars! to see teaching materials for all nine of them.). It's the end of an era. Luckily, Doescher's tackled The Avengers next. I bought the book, I'll just have to start reading and making the teaching materials over the summer! Look for that post in August.
And finally, What About Will was a particularly moving tale of how an older sibling's traumatic brain injury in sports affects the entire family.
If you're looking for additional novels in verse, either for your classroom or home shelves, checkout my April is National Poetry Month Teaching posting, which lists most of the novels in verse and notable novels that use verse I've reviewed over the years and recommend for teaching.
As always, read, write, teach and enjoy!
