novels in verse

"Tae has moved twice in his life. First, from South Korea to the United States when he was adopted as a baby, and then to a new town before he starts high school. In Tae's new school, he's one of the youngest players, and the only person of color, trying out for the Varsity soccer team--a team known for its violent hazing practices. Tae wants more than anything to be part of the team, but worries about fitting in. Then, he sees a familiar face. Luke is a soccer star on his way to scoring a role as the team captain and a full ride to college, but no one knows his secret--that he was adopted too. Tae and Luke met in an adoption group years before, and Luke's first instinct is to help Tae fit in. But tradition is tradition, and Luke might not be able to save Tae from being hurt in the hazing rituals without risking his own reputation"--From the publisher's web site.

Eleven-year-old Lacey rediscovers life and the soothing power of nature and art after she, her little sister, and mom escape from their controlling and abusive father.

"You can be my boyfriend." It only takes five words to change G?ero's life at the end of seventh grade. The summer becomes extra busy as he learns to balance new band practice with his old crew, Los Bobbys, and being Joanna Padilla's boyfriend. They call her "fregona" because she's tough, always sticking up for her family and keeping the school bully in check. But G?ero sees her softness. Together they cook dollar-store spaghetti and hold hands in the orange grove, learning more about themselves and each other than they could have imagined. But when they start eighth grade, Joanna faces a tragedy that requires G?ero to reconsider what it means to show up for someone you love. Honoring multiple poetic traditions, They Call Her Fregona is a bittersweet first-love story in verse and the highly anticipated follow-up to They Call Me G?ero.

Arriving in America, the so-called beautiful country, Anna, a young Taiwanese girl, finds it anything but beautiful as she and her family struggle to make a place for themselves in this world and learn the true meaning of home.

Rynn is adopted and has always felt like something is missing in her life, so when her strained relationship with her adoptive mother reaches a breaking point, Rynn sees it as the opportunity to learn about her birth family. She's surprised to learn that her birth mother is dead, but she has a younger sister who is living in foster care in a nearby town. She desperately wants to meet her biological sister, but she knows if she does, it could tear her adoptive family apart.

Lonely Cuban-born eleven-year-old Oriol lives in Santa Barbara, California, where she enjoys caring for injured animals, but her budding friendship with Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American winner of a Nobel Prize in Literature, emboldens Oriol, an aspiring writer, to open up and create a world of words for herself.

Employs poetic verse to describe the life of twelve-year-old Rima who lives with her mother and grandmother, but has no rights according to the 1920s-era Cuban government because she was born out of wedlock. Shunned by her father and half-sister who live in wealth, Rima longs to be as free as the horses she rides. Rima decides to fight back against this unfair system, joining with a social activist group known as the mambisas, who fought for Cuba's independence from Spain and who now fight for women's suffrage.

"A comprehensive resource for using novels in verse in classrooms and libraries"--Provided by publisher.

In 1980s Brooklyn, new student JJ Pankowski, an autistic, punk-rock-lover, befriends Pie Velez, an Afro-Latinx math geek and graffiti artist.

When her best friend's cancer returns in the summer of 1987, none of her usual pursuits--surfing, singing, or reading poetry--can keep thirteen-year-old Ava afloat.