For National Poetry Month, here are fifteen books of teen-centered poetry, all as novels in verse. See these titles in our catalog.
In Kwame Alexander’s The Door of No Return, Kofi’s peaceful life in Upper Kwanta is changed forever when his older brother wrestles – and accidentally kills – a boy from Lower Kwanta. As the two villages come into conflict, Kofi is kidnapped and taken far, far from home. First in a planned trilogy.
In The Name She Gave Me by Betty Culley, Rynn was given the name Scheherezade by her birth mother, and although she is two years shy of being old enough to find her birth family legally, her unusual name gives her what she needs to begin her search.
Kel Duckhouse’s book, The Bones of Me, tells how Molly’s desire to become an amateur boxer like her older brother is put on hold when he disappears after an assault the night before her first match.
In 1920s Cuba, Rima wants only to be accepted like her whiter, legitimate half-sisters are, but as rebellion threatens the peace, she finds she has more to fight for in Margarita Engle’s book Rima’s Rebellion.
In Diana Farid’s Wave, Ava finds peace in music and surfing and her friendship with Phoenix, which helps to balance her mother’s high expectations. When Phoenix’s cancer returns, Ava longs to spend every minute with her.
In Don’t Call Me a Hurricane by Ellen Hagan, Eliza and her friends still struggle to rebuild their community five years after a devastating storm, so when an attractive developer comes to town, it is with mixed feelings that she shows him what she will do to save her island.
Lawless Spaces by Corey Ann Haydu follows social influencer Mimi, who on her sixteenth birthday is given a blank notebook by her mother, plus the instruction to ask her ancestors what happened to all of them. As Mimi processes this command, her mother disappears after accusing a famous Hollywood director of sexual assault.
Immy has lived many lives as a vampire, but no one has stirred her heart the way Claudia has. And yet, she must feed, in Baby Teeth by Meg Grehan.
Irene Latham’s African Town follows the stories of a number of the last enslaved people brought illegally to America by a ship’s captain who wanted to win a bet.
We Are All So Good at Smiling, by Amber McBride, follows Whimsy, who is in the hospital for depression, and Faerry, a boy with magical qualities. When they learn they live near each other, they bond over the fact they are the only two Black kids in their neighborhood, and that leads them to confront the fear and sorrow they believe lives in the forest down the street.
In Joy McCullough’s book We Are the Ashes, We Are the Fire, Em, who is shocked at her sister’s rape and the subsequent trial of her rapist (he goes free), writes about Marguerite, a medieval swordswoman who avenged the victims of rapists in her time.
Struggling to fit in with her father’s new family in A.M. Rogers’ book Things That Burn, Harper finds power in stage-acting, but when her dad is called to fight a growing wildfire she must remain at home with her new stepmom, who is due to give birth very soon.
In R.M. Romero’s book The Ghosts of Rose Hill, Ilana must spend the summer in Prague, where she meets the ghost of Benjamin, picks up her violin again, and considers her commitment to art and love.
Kip Wilson’s book, One Last Shot, uses a diary-in-verse form to tell the story of Gerda Taro, who took some of the most iconic, unforgettable photos of the Spanish Civil War.
The all-consuming love of two queer Black girls is told before and after the fire that consumes their relationship in Nothing Burns as Bright as You, by Ashley Woodfolk.
~ posted by Wally B.
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