Blast from the Poetry Past: 1997

In 1997, Karen Hesse’s novel in verse, Out of the Dust, was awarded the Newbery medal and set the stage for an explosion of the novel in verse form.

And sad to say, that was pretty much IT for poetry books winning the Newbery award until 2008 when Laura Amy Schlitz won for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village (Candlewick, 2007). That’s four poetry winners in 90 years!

1981-- Nancy Willard’s A Visit to William Blake’s Inn
1988-- Paul Fleishman's Joyful Noise
1997-- Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust
2008-- Laura Amy Schlitz's Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!

Do you like the verse novel? I do! And tweens and teens certainly do. Look for these new verse novels coming out in 2013:

1.    Cheng, Andrea. 2013. Etched in Clay: The Life of Dave, Enslaved Potter and Poet. New York: Lee & Low.
2.    Clark, Kristin Elizabeth. 2013. Freak Boy. New York: Macmillan.
3.   Crossan, Sarah. 2013. The Weight of Water. New York: Bloomsbury.
4.    Engle, Margarita. 2013. The Lightning Dreamer. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
5.    Engle, Margarita. 2013. Mountain Dog. New York: Holt.
6.    Frost, Helen. 2013. Salt. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
7.    Grimes, Nikki. 2013. Words with Wings. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.
8.    Hemphill, Stephanie. 2013. Hideous Love: The Story of the Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein. New York: HarperCollins.
9.    Hopkins, Ellen. 2013. Smoke. New York: Simon & Schuster.
10.    MacDonald, Maryann. 2013. Odette’s Secrets. New York: Bloomsbury.
11.    Sones, Sonya. 2013. To Be Perfectly Honest: A Novel Based on an Untrue Story. New York: Simon & Schuster.
12.    Thompson, Holly. 2013. The Language Inside. New York: Delacorte.
13.    Weston, Robert Paul. 2013. Prince Puggly of Spud and the Kingdom of Spiff. New York: Razorbill/Penguin.
14.    Wissinger, Tamera Will. 2013. Gone Fishing: A Novel in Verse. Ill. by Matthew Cordell. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.


Posting by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2013. All rights reserved.

Image credits: Scholastic;cleareyesfullshelves