Teen Reads: Books in VerseUnpublished

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Portugal, 1967. Sónia thinks she knows what her future holds. She'll become a poet, and together she and her artist boyfriend, Zé Miguel, will rise above the government restrictions that shape their lives. The restrictions on what Sónia can do and where she can go without a man's permission. The...

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD . A COSMOPOLITAN BEST YA BOOK OF THE YEAR . A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, BOOKLIST AND KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Exploring the harsh reality of OCD and violent intrusive thoughts in stunning,...

A Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book Penelope Ross has always felt like a passenger in her mother's fairytale - until the night of her 17th birthday, when she is forced to enter her own. After a text from her estranged mother rips her away from a night with friends...

A Kirkus' Best Book and Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection! One Step Forward is a compelling debut YA historical fiction novel in verse about Matilda Young--the youngest American suffragist imprisoned for picketing the White House to demand women's right to vote....

In this emotional novel in verse by the Stonewall Award-winning author of The Black Flamingo, a queer biracial teen confronts issues of race, privilege, class, and sexuality on his journey to falling in love. Kai knows who he is to others: The good grandson, the reliable best friend, the...

A New York Times bestseller! A group of children investigate the threat that prompted large-scale evacuations in this "solid and engrossing" (Booklist) companion novel to the New York Times bestselling Alone told in multiple POVs. ...

From the UK Children's Laureate comes a spellbinding YA novel in verse blending the ancient myth of Theseus and the Minotaur with the quest of a modern-day teen in search of his father. Theo, a seventeen-year-old London schoolboy with a single mother, is desperate to track down...

An unflinching, honest novel in verse about a teenager's journey into the slam poetry scene and the dangerous new relationship that could threaten all her dreams. From the award-winning poet and author of HOME IS NOT A COUNTRY. A MICHAEL L. PRINTZ HONOR BOOK * A CALIBA...

From #1 NYT bestselling author Ellen Hopkins comes a new heartbreaking young adult novel in verse about twins separated in the foster care system and the different paths their lives take. Seventeen-year-old twins Storm and Lake have always been in perfect sync. They faced the...

WINNER OF THE 2025 GEOFFREY BILSON AWARD FOR HISTORICAL FICTION FOR YOUNG PEOPLE From award-winning verse novelist Shari Green comes an unforgettable story of friendship, first love, and an impossible choice between integrity and duty, family and friends, all while fighting...

In the vein of Grown and The Poet X, Hannah V. Sawyerr's All the Fighting Parts is a searing and defiant young adult novel in verse about reclaiming agency after a sexual assault within the church community. Sixteen-year-old Amina Conteh has always...

Winner of the Pura Belpré Award and Walter Dean Myers Award for Young Adult Literature! Saints of the Household is a haunting contemporary YA about an act of violence in a small-town--beautifully told by a debut Indigenous Costa Rican-American writer--that...

They Both Die at the End meets The Bell Jar in this haunting, beautiful young adult novel-in-verse about clinical depression and healing from trauma, from National Book Award Finalist Amber McBride. Whimsy is back in the hospital for treatment of...

Faith Navarro has landed a scholarship to an arts high school for violin. But her struggles at home threaten to take away everything she's ever worked for. Her older sister's drug addiction has caused Faith to miss school one too many times. Her school offers her one more chance to keep her...