Poetry
Middle School Novels in Verse and Poetry Anthologies an Annotated Bibliography
By Amanda Haas
Novels in Verse
Love That Dog is a novel in verse about a boy, Jack, who learns to love poetry. The novel is written as entries in Jack’s journal. Each entry is written as a poem. He starts the school year writing entries describing his confusion with poetry. Then, he discovers that he is writing poetry and doesn’t even realize it. He works toward writing free verse poetry about his beloved dog. His teacher keeps a poetry wall where his work is posted, but most of the time, he asks his teacher not to reveal he is the author. He is new to poetry and not very confident about what he has written. He gains more confidence as the students show they enjoy his work. Ultimately he learns to enjoy poetry.
This book has great examples of free verse poetry. The author, Sharon Creech, refers to many poems that Jack is learning about in school. You will find all of these poems in the back of the book which is a nice addition to the novel. Creech is a Newbery Medal winning author for her book Walk Two Moons. She has written other novels in verse including Hate That Cat and Heartbeat. Love That Dog is a great book for middle school students who don’t think they are interested in poetry. They just might find themselves giving poetry a chance like Jack did.
Hate That Cat is a follow up novel in verse to Love That Dog. The book follows Jack through another year of school and specifically focuses on Jack learning poetry. In this school year, Jack learns about alliteration, onomatopoeia, simile, and metaphor. Many of the poems Jack reads are about cats. At the beginning of the book, he hates cats. As the school year progresses, he starts to open up to the idea of enjoying cats. His teacher has a cat, his favorite famous poet has a cat and eventually he gets a cat. Because of this, most of the poetry he writes is centered on cats. His first journal entry starts with
I hate that cat
like a dog hates a rat
I said I hate that cat
like a dog hates a rat
He writes several more poems about cats and eventually ends with
Love that cat,
like a bird loves to twitter
I said I love that cat
like a bird loves to twitter
Love to call her in the morning
love to call her
“Hey there, Skitter, McKitter!”
Hate That Cat has many great examples of alliteration, onomatopoeia, simile, and metaphor. Just like Sharon Creech’s first book, Love That Dog, Creech puts all of the poems that Jack refers to at the end of the book. Middle school students will enjoy how many of Jack’s poems are inspired by these poems at the end of the book. For example, Jack writes many poems that begin with, so much depends upon… Creech publishes the poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Willams at the end of the book. This poem also begins with that same line. Readers will see the connection between Jack’s poems and the poems that inspired him.
The Way a Door Closes is a novel in verse about the separation of a family. The book begins by painting the picture of a happy family. C.J., the eldest child, lives with his parents, his grandmother, and his younger brother and sister. His dad is a family man. He spends each Sunday afternoon with just his boys. He dances with C.J.’s mom on a whim and reads books to his daughter before bed. Then, he loses his job. He struggles to find a new one, and for reasons never revealed because C.J. is too afraid to ask, C.J.’s dad leaves them. The second half of the book focuses on C.J. stepping up to take over new responsibilities with his siblings. He starts reading his sister her bedtime story, and he makes studying a second priority to spending time with his younger brother. While he has a brave exterior, on the inside he is torn up over his father’s departure. He prays for his father to come back, dreams of his return, and deals with the embarrassment he feels when his classmates learn his father has left him. Author Hope Anita Smith won several awards for this free style novel in verse including the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award and the Judy Lopez award from the Women's National Book Association. In addition, The Way a Door Closes was chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by School Library Journal 2004. Middle school boys will really enjoy this book because it focuses on growing up and becoming a man.
Keeping the Night Watch is a novel in verse about a thirteen year old boy named C.J. The story picks up after his father who abandoned their family, in The Way a Door Closes, returns home for another chance. C.J. is very reluctant to give him that chance. When C.J.’s dad left, C.J. took over a lot of responsibilities like reading bedtime stories to his sister and making sure the house was locked up and everyone was in their beds at night. C.J. resents his dad coming home and picking back up the responsibilities that he has taken over. C.J.’s brother and sister are quicker to forgive their dad and that upsets C.J. as well. C.J. starts to feel angry which isolates him from the rest of the family. Through a series of free style poems, C.J. learns to forgive his father, but it is not without a struggle. Middle school boys will enjoy this novel because C.J. not only deals with his family issues but also deals with some teenage boy issues such as a crush and dealing with a good friend.
Sister Slam and the Poetic Motormouth Road Trip is a novel in verse that middle school girls will particularly like. Sister Slam is the story of a poet named Laura Crapper who spends the summer learning more about herself. She is overweight and very eccentric for the little town in Pennsylvania that she is from. Laura decides to change her name to Sister Slam and take a road trip with her best friend Twig to a poetry slam. During their adventure, they have a couple of funny traffic violations and somehow end up in New York City staying at a swanky hotel with a cute rich boy and his parents. While in New York, Sister Slam and Twig go on a poetry slam tour. After having the time of their lives, they must return home to Laura’s ailing father, and Laura must face her fear of losing another parent. In the end, Laura learns to accept who she is and feel comfortable in her funky style. Author, Linda Oatman High, does a great job of writing the entire novel in slam poetry. High has written many children’s books and won many awards for her books.
Hugging the Rock is a novel in verse about Rachel, a child who has lost her mother and is trying to learn to live with only one parent, her father. When Rachel’s mother leaves them, she is left trying to figure out why only to discover that her mother never wanted her. She withdraws from her friends, her father, and her teachers. Over time, Rachel’s father becomes her rock, and they grow much closer. She learns that her father is the parent that wanted her, and he has taken care of her on his own before when she was an infant and her mother was in a hospital for her bipolar disorder. All of Rachel’s discoveries about her father result in a strong bond between the two of them, and she learns she will be ok without her mother. Middle school girls who only live with their dad or deal with a mental disorder in their family will really connect to this free verse novel, however, all middle school girls will enjoy it.
Poetry Anthologies
A Kick in the Head is an anthology of poetry that is perfect for middle school students. It is a compilation of twenty-nine different types of poems. The introduction to the book is excellent. It gives a good explanation for middle school students as to why poems have rules. After relating the rules of baseball to the rules of poetry, compiler, Paul B. Janeczko says, “ Knowing the rules makes poetry – like sports – more fun for players and spectators alike” (2005, p.8). What makes this book extra special is that each piece of poetry has a description about the form of poetry that it is. In addition, there is a more detailed description of each type of poem at the end of the book. Compiler Paul B. Janeczko and illustrator Chris Rashka present poems such as the more well known haiku to the lesser known ballad. Middle school students will find humor in the riddle poem and the clerihew while enjoying the colorful illustrations. Janeczko’s other well known compilations of poetry include A Poke in the I: A Collection of Concrete Poems and Dirty Laundry Pile: Poems in Different Voices.
The Brothers’ War is an anthology of poetry written about the civil war. This anthology contains poems about what it was like to be a slave, The First Battle of Bull Run, the worry mothers and fathers carried about their sons in the war, the sick and the injured soldiers and an excellent poem on John Brown and his battle at Harper’s Ferry. The author, J. Patrick Lewis, has also included a short history lesson that goes along with each poem and authentic civil war pictures. At the end of the book, Lewis has a map of the Unites States that shows where the major battles were fought, what states were considered North and South and a timeline of the selected events from the civil war. In addition, Lewis has written his inspiration for each poem he wrote. Middle school boys will enjoy this book because of the great poetry and graphic pictures.
Blue Lipstick is an anthology of concrete poems. Middle school girls will really enjoy this book because all of the poems are written about a girl named Jessie. Each poem has something to do with her life as a teenager from dealing with her annoying younger brother in the poem “My Brother the Genius” to trying to impress a boy she likes in the poem “Advanced English.” The majority of the poems are funny but some of the poems really hit home. Every girl can relate to the poem “The Secret” where Jessie tells her friend a secret she shouldn’t have shared, and it ends up being passed around to what feels like everyone she knows.
Author John Grandits is an award winning magazine designer. Blue Lipstick is his second book of concrete poetry. He not only wrote the book but also illustrated it. He does a wonderful job of capturing the essence of concrete poems. This is particularly evident in the poem “A Chart of My Emotional Day.” The poem is a line graph where the words of the poem make the zig zag line across the graph paper. The axis is labeled not by numbers but by her mood from "shaving my head and running away" at the bottom of the axis to "ridiculously happy" at the top. Every middle school girl should read this book to help give them a humorous perspective on being a teenage girl.
Technically, It’s Not My Fault is an anthology of concrete poems. Each poem is about the life of eleven year old Robert. Author John Grandits does a great job of keeping humor in his poems. Most readers will be able to relate to “The Cast” where Grandits has notes from Robert’s different friends on a drawing of a cast which explain how he got the cast. For example, Tommy Z. writes, “I was on my porch when you came down the hill. I never knew a bike could go that fast.” In addition, to the wonderful concrete poems inside, Grandits has a clever poem on the cover. The poem is about a concrete block and a tomato Robert pushed out of a window as a science experiment. On the cover, the poem is written inside of a block, and on the back of the book is a smashed tomato. From poems about sports such as “Skateboard,” “The Layup” and “Robert’s Four At-Bats” to poems about bodily functions such as “The Autobiography of Murray the Fart,” middle school boys will really enjoy these poems.