Young Adult Literature: Novels in Verse

Titles Discussed

Crank by Ellen Hopkins

Fishtailing by Wendy Phillips

Keesha's House by Helen Frost

True Believer by Virginia Euwer Wolff

Genre Overview

Although young adult literature has existed as a distinct genre since the mid-twentieth century, the verse novel is a relatively new form of the genre that began to gain popularity in the 1990s. The appearance of works written for readers of different ages is nothing new in world literature. There have long been fables, nursery rhymes, and other forms of short stories written specifically for children, and especially since the rise in popularity of the modern novel, English-language stories have increasingly been written for specific audiences. Nevertheless, it was not until the 1960s that the modern young adult genre came about, a development that many agree coincided with the publication of S. E. Hinton's novel The Outsiders in 1967. In the following decade, young adult literature—that is, literature told from the perspective of teenage protagonists, written for and, perhaps more significantly, marketed to adolescents roughly between the ages of twelve and eighteen—saw a strong surge in popularity.

While many young people were reading during these early years, the scope of the genre was still relatively limited. Perhaps for this reason, the 1980s saw a decline in the popularity of young adult literature. Another problem arose near the end of the decade and the start of the 1990s as schools and libraries faced budgetary cutbacks. While young adult novels were partially marketed to their intended readers, they were also aimed at the adults making the purchases for libraries. With those libraries' sudden lack of resources, publishers needed to market directly to teenagers in order to sell their literature. As a result, in the 1990s, young adult literature saw not just a resurgence of the genre but also a broadening of its scope.

The verse novel was introduced for wider market consumption in the 1990s, with early examples including Judy Scuppernong (1990) by Brenda Seabrooke and Soda Jerk (1990) by Cynthia Rylant. However, it was not until the latter part of the decade that the genre found a footing in young adult literature. The end of the twentieth century saw authors, readers, and critics more interested in realistic and intense narratives that went beyond stories of romance and great friendships to focus on real, important issues faced by teens. Young adult literature focused on issues such as death, drugs, drinking, teen pregnancy, violence, and even suicide. With these new themes came a new interest in their impact on the teenage mind, as many young readers were dealing with these same issues in their own lives.

Poetry became a way for readers to enter a space that had been relatively closed off in prose fiction: the mind of the adolescent protagonist. The verse novel, drawing from the tradition of young adult realism, thus became a medium through which readers could experience the emotional consequences of major, life-changing events. Novels such as Ellen Hopkins's Crank (2004) and its two sequels, Glass (2007) and Fallout (2010), laid bare the rough world and emotional turbulence of teenage drug addiction, while Virginia Euwer Wolff's True Believer (2001) showed the impact that violence can have on love, family, and religion. Keesha's House (2003), by Helen Frost, is one of the first and most graphic depictions of issues surrounding teen pregnancy, drinking, abuse, and problems with the legal system. Fishtailing (2010), by Wendy Phillips, similarly gives readers a look into the struggles of multiple protagonists.

Works

While young adult novels vary widely in their choices of protagonist, setting, tone, and even mood, they tend to share many of the same plot details that echo those surrounding the lives of adolescents. Love interests and teenage romance play a role in many of these story lines, although often these scenes serve to add to the mood of the story rather than playing a pivotal role. Although romance has become something of cliché within the genre, it is also a key factor in the life of many, if not most, burgeoning adults, and verse novels tend to focus on challenges that many adolescents need to face and overcome. What makes these four novels—Crank, True Believer, Keesha's House, and Fishtailing—central to the verse-novel genre is that the obstacles they present are not ones that will necessarily help the protagonists become members of society but rather ones that they must overcome simply to survive. Yet in doing so—in overcoming these obstacles, in continuing to move forward—the protagonists help form the most integral part of themselves: their identity. As one of the key conflicts for any young adult, this important theme is well suited for the verse-novel genre, where readers can experience the inner thoughts of the characters and see how such situations may be dealt with.

Virginia Euwer Wolff is one of the top names in young adult verse novels, in part for making an early contribution to the nascent genre with Make Lemonade in 1993. It is the first novel of a trilogy told from the perspective of fourteen-year-old Verna LaVaughn as she deals with class struggles, family issues, violence, and most importantly identity, and it is notable for being one of the foundational American young adult verse novels. Wolff's skill as a writer of verse was fully recognized with the publication of the second novel of the trilogy, True Believer (2001), which won the 2001 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. In it, Wolff focuses on the effects of violence on the adolescent mind. While LaVaughn is a witness to individual violence in the first novel, True Believer explores the consequences of living in a society of violence. Individual violence is the violence between people, the violence that can be observed every day, and LaVaughn's situation in life forces her to confront this violence. However, True Believer is also interested in institutional violence—that is, the pervasive culture, situations, and atmosphere that condone, or at least enable, individual acts of violence. Wolff does not attempt to shield the reader from the rawness of these actions; LaVaughn's place in society shows her this violence every day:

Robby ran in the way of his mother's pimp,

and Shyrelle got held in front of her big brother

when the gang gun went off

and she lived for 6 days

before dying of all that violence and dumbness. (Wolff 30)

But the book is about overcoming obstacles, and the obstacles LaVaughn faces are more than just her circumstances.

Love plays a role in the strong ties between characters in Wolff's novel, and it is also the driving force of Ellen Hopkins's novel Crank. Like True Believer, Crank holds very little back in its depiction of teenage use of methamphetamine hydrochloride, better known as crystal meth; it is so open in its depiction of drug use, sex, and addiction that it has been challenged and banned in many different school and districts. Hopkins, who is the mother of a crystal meth addict, has been recognized for her insight into the teenage mind and her skill as a poet. Written in the first person from the perspective of teenage addict Kristina, her verse mirrors the speech patterns of adolescents, setting the rhythm and timing of a particular mindset and making the reader seem more deeply connected to Kristina's personal thoughts.

Identification is one of the essential parts of the verse novel and one that is used frequently in Keesha's House by Helen Frost, a story about multiple young people with serious life issues who are attempting to put their lives in order. Frost begins by almost immediately revealing each character's situation, connecting with the reader through exposing lines of poetry that are both personal and attractive in their cadence, language, and rhythm. Through this connection, readers have a part in and can experience more directly the issues that the protagonists must overcome and the lost sense of identity that they struggle to regain over the course of the novel.

While True Believer and Crank are both told from the first-person perspective of a single main character—LaVaughn and Kristina, respectively—Keesha's House and Fishtailing both switch between multiple characters and perspectives. In Keesha's House, this is done by separating the story into eight parts of seven poems each, with the poems in each part representing seven different characters' points of view. The titular character's story begins in the third poem of part 1, “I Found a Place”:

Stephie walked by this afternoon, holding

her umbrella in front of her face.

When it rains like this, all day, into the night,

that's when you need a home

more than you need your pride. She still

goes home to her folks, but she's scared

of something. (Frost 6, lines 1–7)

Notably, Keesha is not the first but the third to speak, and her first lines are not about herself but rather about somebody else. In this way, Keesha's House gives readers a more external, and thus somewhat more objective, view of its characters and their stories, working within the first-person perspective of one character to reveal more information about another.

In Wendy Phillips's Fishtailing, as in Keesha's House, each poem is told from a particular character's point of view. Although the arrangement of the poems is less ordered than in Keesha's House, each character's perspective is further differentiated by font choice and text justification. Tricia's and Miguel's poems are set in different serif fonts, for example, while Natalie's and Kyle's fonts are sans serif; Tricia's, Miguel's, and Natalie's poems are all flush left, while Kyle's are flush right. In addition, Fishtailing goes beyond inner monologues, looking to capture the feeling of different types of writing. While some of the poems are internal, others are evidently written for school assignments and are followed by notes from the English teacher, Mrs. Farr, which provide an outside perspective on both the poems and the students themselves. Phillips uses the structured form of poetry to represent a more holistic experience of high school, incorporating other text types, such as teachers' notes and administrative e-mails, to fill in details about the characters' lives without disrupting the narrative flow of the story.

The literary styles of these four works are very similar to one another and characteristic of the genre as a whole. Here, as in many verse novels written for young adults, free verse is the dominant form. As poetry is often read and experienced more personally than prose, it does seem natural that it can be used to share a character's inner mind with the reader.

The power of verse lies in more than just the arrangement of words. Poetry can use form and the page itself to make a point—for example, by using negative space to make writing stand out more, or as a way to emphasize defiance of authority. Form can also be used to make a point more dramatic, as in “Just before the Drop,” one of the poems in Hopkins's Crank, in which Kristina explains:

You know how you

stand and stand and stand

in line for the most

gigantic incredible roller

coaster

you've ever dared attempt. (Hopkins 88, lines 1–6)

The indentation and line breaks help connect the form and structure of the lines and make the metaphor of crystal meth use as a roller-coaster ride more dramatic.

Yet while form and content are able to work together when the placement of words on the page become a part of the art, language itself is also very important to the expression of characters' inner thoughts. Hopkins defines a good verse novel as one that uses “startling imagery and elevated language, such as metaphor, alliteration, assonance,” to connect the reader subconsciously with the text and make it more personally relatable (Shahan). The metaphor of the roller coaster above is one example of how poetic devices can create more vivid images and therefore stronger bonds with the reader. In Fishtailing, Tricia's first poem begins,

Her glance

across the crowded classroom

speaks louder

than the droning recital

of paragraph structure. (Phillips 9, lines 1–5)

The abstract language used in the comparison, and even the brief uses of alliteration (“crowded classroom”) and assonance (“crowded,” “classroom, “louder”), works to remove the language from simple, realistic description into a more dreamlike, mental state. While this technique creates intensity for the reader on the emotional level, many writers of the verse-novel genre choose to contrast this with the intensity of the graphic, raw description of the lives that their main characters face. In the first poem of Keesha's House, titled “Now This Baby,” pregnant teenager Stephie thinks,

Jason said, You could get rid of it. I thought of how he tossed

the broken condom in the trash, saying, Nothing

will happen. Now this baby is that nothing,

growing fingers in the dark, growing toes, a girl

or boy, heart pulsing. Not something to be tossed

aside, not nothing. … (Frost 2, lines 5–7)

Very few genres of young adult literature have relied so heavily on the literary conventions of poetry. However, it is these conventions, including the focus on rhythm, the need to mirror natural patterns of speech, and the use of poetic devices to appeal to the more subconscious parts of the reader's mind, that develop a reader's personal connection with the main characters. In turn, readers can more directly experience the often intense emotional issues that many adolescents face, issues that arise from these very real situations, and can identify with the protagonists' need for a stable, secure identity.

Conclusion

It is difficult to exactly delineate any style or specific genre of writing, but the verse novel aimed at young adult readers can be said to be a creation of the twenty-first century. The genre has found a place within the corpus of young adult literature since its inception in the 1990s, having come to represent the general trend of young adult literature toward depicting the most important and intense issues that adolescents face in their family, school, and personal lives.

While the uniqueness of this genre comes partly from its form, its most original element is the introspection and voyeuristic perspective that it offers to readers. While novels and authors throughout the history of young adult literature have faced the possibility of being banned for what some may consider too-graphic or too-adult depictions of problems, the verse novel takes these ideas to new levels. The verse novel is a genre that more than any other combines content with form, and in both aspects it can be said to be quite experimental. In general, modern poetry has been a medium of experimentation and expression unlike any other type of literature, and the verse novel is no exception. Many writers, especially those discussed above, have taken the opportunity to combine new and radical depictions of serious teenage problems with the experimental aspects of the poetry and novel forms.

This genre has offered new perspectives on serious issues such as addiction, drug use, abuse, suicide, and teen pregnancy. The internal, personal points of view from which these issues are addressed have made the verse novel a significant and worthy form of young adult literature. It is a genre that holds back very little from the readers, and for this reason it is both celebrated and reviled.

Unfortunately, poetry is still relatively unpopular among young readers. While some types of poetry have found younger audiences, particularly in performative contexts such as poetry slams and spoken-word performances, the form itself can be off-putting for many readers. However, this is balanced by the sheer intensity that authors are bringing to the genre. Sales of verse novels continue to climb, and the form has proven itself more than just a trend from the late twentieth century. As already-recognized authors find their works adapted to alternative mediums, such as film, and new authors find ways to share their perspectives, this still-young genre may continue to gain popularity. Truth is what adolescent readers want, and the verse novel has proved to be one of the best vehicles for it.

Bibliography

Alexander, Joy. “The Verse-Novel: A New Genre.” Children's Literature in Education 36.3 (2005): 269–283. Literary Reference Center. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=18140560&site=lrc-live>.

Lubar, David. “The History of Young Adult Novels.” The ALAN Review Spring 2003: 117–122. Print.

Sullivan, Ed. “Fiction or Poetry?” School Library Journal Aug. 2003: 44–45. Literary Reference Center. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=10441660&site=lrc-live>.

Bibliography

Cart, Michael. “The Renaissance Continues: Young Adult Literature for the 21st Century.” Catholic Library World 74.9 (2009): 279–85. Poetry & Short Story Reference Center. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=prf&AN=41423480&site=prc-live>.

Franzak, Judith, and Elizabeth Noll. “Monstrous Acts: Problematizing Violence in Young Adult Literature.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 49.8 (2006): 662–672. Literary Reference Center. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=20913657&site=lrc-live>.

Frost, Helen. Keesha's House. 2003. New York: Farrar, 2007. Print.

Hopkins, Ellen. Crank. New York: Simon, 2004. Print.

Phillips, Wendy. Fishtailing. Regina: Coteau, 2010. Print.

Shahan, Sherry. “A Fresh Approach to YA Novels: Learn How the Young adult Novel-in-Verse Offers Unique Opportunities for Emotional Insight.” Writer Feb. 2009: 34+. Literary Reference Center. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=36183184&site=lrc-live>.

Strickland, Ashley. “A Brief History of Young Adult Literature.” CNN.com. Cable News Network, 17 Oct. 2013. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. <http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/15/living/young-adult-fiction-evolution>.

Wolff, Virginia Euwer. True Believer. New York: Atheneum, 2001. Print.