Good Reads

Book Lists - Books in Poetry Form

• Brimstone Journals by Koertge, Ronald. YP - In a series of short interconnected poems, students at a high school nicknamed Brimstone reveal the violence existing and growing in their lives.
• Crashboomlove: a novel in verse by Herrera, Juan Felipe. YP - After his father leaves home, sixteen-year-old Cesar Garcia lives with his mother and struggles through the painful experiences of growing up as a Mexican American high school student.
• Foreign Exchange: a mystery in poems by Glenn, Mel. YP - Town residents young and old, teachers, and some students visiting from the city--are caught up in the events surrounding the murder of a beautiful high school student who had recently moved to the small lake-side community of Hudson Landing.
• Frenchtown by Cormier, Robert J. - A series of vignettes in free verse in which the writer reminisces about his life as a twelve-year-old boy living in a small town during the hot summer of 1938.
• Girl Coming in for a Landing by Wayland, April Halprin. YP - A collection of over 100 poems recounting the ups and downs of one adolescent girl's school year.
• Jump Ball: a basketball season in poems by Glenn, Me.l YP - Tells the story of a high school basketball team's season through poems reflecting the feelings of students, their families, teachers, and coaches.
• Learning to Swim by Turner, Ann Warren. YP - A series of poems convey the feelings of a young girl whose sense of joy and security at the family's summer house is shattered when an older boy who lives nearby sexually abuses her.
• Make Lemonade by Wolff, Virginia Euwer. YP - In order to earn money for college, fourteen-year-old LaVaughn babysits for a teenage mother.
• Out of the Dust by Hesse, Karen. YP Newbery - Fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.
• Split Image: a Story in Poems by Glenn, Mel. YP - 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.
• Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy by Sones, Sonya. YP - A younger sister has a difficult time adjusting to life after her older sister has a mental breakdown.
• Taking of Room 114 by Glenn, Me .YP - 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.
• True Believer by Wolff, Virginia Euwer. YP - Living in the inner city amidst guns and poverty, fifteen-year-old LaVaughn learns from old and new friends, and inspiring mentors, that life is what you make it--an occasion to rise to. Sequel to Make Lemonade.
• What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sones, Sonya. YP - Sophie describes her relationships with a series of boys as she searches for Mr. Right.
• Who Killed Mr. Chippendale? by Glenn, Mel YP - 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.
• Witness by Hesse, Karen. YP - A series of poems express the views of various people in a small Vermont town, including a young black girl and a young Jewish girl, during the early 1920s when the Ku Klux Klan is trying to infiltrate the town.