Critical Perspectives

Bibliography of Secondary Sources: Children’s Poetry and Verse Novels 

Abdur-Rahman, Samira. "Spaces of the Ancestor: Jacqueline Woodson and the Long Civil Rights Movement." The Lion and the Unicorn 42, no. 2 (2018): 180-197.

Addison, Catherine. “The Verse Novel as Genre: Contradiction or Hybrid?” Style 43, no. 4 (2009): 539 – 562.  

Alexander, Joy. “The Verse-novel: A New Genre.” Children’s Literature in Education 36, no. 3 (2005): 269 – 283.  

Anatol, Giselle Liza. Brown Girl Dreaming: A Ghost Story in the Postcolonial Gothic Tradition.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 41, no. 4 (2016): 403 – 19.

Apol, Laura, and Janine L. Certo. “A Burgeoning Field or a Sorry State: US Poetry for Children, 1800 – Present.” In Handbook of Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature, edited by Shelby Wolf, Karen Coats, Patricia Enciso, and Christine Jenkins. New York: Routledge, 2011: 275 – 287. 

Bogstad, Janice M. “Is There Poetry in Children’s Poetry?” The Lion and the Unicorn 4, no. 2 (1980–1981): 83 – 92.  

Bokelman, Maggie. "'As Slippery and Tricky as a Wild Inky Word': Margarita Engle's The Wild Book and the Advantages of Verse Novels for Children with Dyslexia." The Lion and the Unicorn 42, no. 2 (2018): 198-217.

Cadden, Mike. “Genre as Nexus.” In Handbook of Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature, edited by Shelby Wolf, Karen Coats, Patricia Enciso, and Christine Jenkins. New York: Routledge, 2011: 302 – 313. 

---. "Rhetorical Technique in the Young Adult Verse Novel." The Lion and the Unicorn, 42, no. 2 (2018): 129-144.

---. “The Verse Novel and the Question of Genre.” The ALAN Review 39, no. 1 (2011): 21 – 27. 

Campbell, Patty. “The Sand in the Oyster: Vetting the Verse Novel.” The Horn Book Magazine 80, no. 5 (2004): 611 – 616.  

Coats, Karen. “The Meaning of Children’s Poetry: A Cognitive Approach.” International Research in Children’s Literature 6, no. 2 (2013): 127 – 142.  

---. "Form as Metaphor in Middle Grade and Young Adult Verse Novels." The Lion and the Unicorn 42, no. 2 (2018): 145-161.

Farish, Terry. “Why Verse?” School Library Journal 59, no. 11 (2013): 32.  

Flynn, Richard. “Can Children’s Poetry Matter?” The Lion and the Unicorn 17, no. 1 (1993): 37 – 44. 

---. "Why Genre Matters: A Case for the Importance of Aesthetics in the Verse Memoirs of Marilyn Nelson and Jacqueline Woodson." The Lion and the Unicorn, 42, no. 2 (2018): 109-128.

---, Kelly Hager, and Joseph T. Thomas Jr. “It Could Be Verse: The 2005 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry.” The Lion and the Unicorn 29, no. 3 (2005): 427 – 441.  

---, Lissa Paul, Joseph T. Thomas Jr. “Panning for Gold: The 2017 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry.” The Lion and the Unicorn 41, no. 3 (2017): 386 – 403.

---, Lissa Paul, Kate Pendlebury. “The Quick and the Dead: The 2016 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry.” The Lion and the Unicorn 40, no. 3 (2016): 329 – 46.

Frost, Helen. “Michael L. Printz Honor Speech.” Young Adult Library Services 3, no. 1 (2004): 29, 31.  

---. “‘Pollen From One Place to Another’: The Braid in Indiana and Scotland.” Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature 49, no. 2 (2011): 54 – 59. 

Glenn, Wendy. “Form Follows Function: The Relationship Between Structure and Content in Three of Karen Hesse’s Novels.” The ALAN Review 31, no. 2 (2004): 27 – 32.  

Halliday, Alison. “Poetry in Australia: A Modern Dilemma.” The Lion and the Unicorn 27, no. 2 (2003): 218 – 234.  

---. “Poetry in Place, Poetry in Its Place.” Papers: Explorations into Children’s Literature 9, no. 3 (1999): 30 – 37.  

Heyman, Michael, Angela Sorby, and Joseph T. Thomas Jr. “Lively Rigor: The 2009 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry.” The Lion and the Unicorn 33, no. 3 (2009): 376 – 396.  

---. “It’s (Not) All Small Stuff: The 2009 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry.” The Lion and the Unicorn 34, no. 3 (2010): 354 – 363.  

Heyman, Michael, Michael Joseph, and Joseph T. Thomas Jr. “‘Roses Are Planted Where Thorns Grow’: The 2012 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry.” The Lion and the Unicorn 36, no. 3 (2012): 288 – 307.  

---. “Outside the Inside of the Box: The 2013 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry.” The Lion and the Unicorn 37, no. 3 (2013): 327 – 345.  

Hill, Rebecca. “Taking a Closer Look: Ellen Hopkins and Her Novels.” The ALAN Review 38, no. 2 (2011): 77 – 82. 

Howard, Krystal. “Collage, Confession, and Crisis in Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 42, no. 3 (2017): 326 – 44.

---. "Influence Poetry and Found Poetry: The Reflection of Creative Writing Pedagogy in the Verse Novel for Young Readers." The Lion and the Unicorn 42, no. 2 (2018): 218-237.

---, Catherine Kyle, and Rachel L. Rickard Rebellino. “Holding a Poem in the Body: The 2019 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry.” The Lion and the Unicorn 43, no. 3 (2019): 406 – 21.

Mallan, Kerry, and Roderick McGillis. “Textual Aporias: Exploring the Perplexities of Form and Absence in Australian Verse Novels.” The Looking Glass: New Perspectives on Children’s Literature 7, no. 2 (2003). 

O’Neal, Amy. “Calling It Verse Doesn’t Make It Poetry.” Young Adult Library Services 2, no. 2 (2004): 39 – 40. 

Paul, Lissa, Donelle Ruwe, and Craig Svonkin. “Old Guard > Avant-Garde > Kindergarde: The 2014 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry.” The Lion and the Unicorn 38, no. 3 (2014): 381 – 400.  

---, Kate PendleBury, and Craig Svonkin. “A New Parliament of Fouls: The 2015 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry.” The Lion and the Unicorn 39, no. 3 (2015): 331 – 351. 

Rebellino, Rachel Rickard. "'I'll Write What Needs to Be Remembered': The Use of Verse in Children's and Young Adult Historical Fiction about the Vietnam War." The Lion and the Unicorn 42, no. 2 (2018): 162-179. 

Ruwe, Donelle. “Dramatic Monologues and the Novel-in-Verse: Adelaide O'Keeffe and the Development of Theatrical Children's Poetry in the long Eighteenth Century.” The Lion and the Unicorn 33, no. 2 (2009): 219 – 234.

Sorby, Angela, Joseph T. Thomas Jr., and Richard Flynn. “‘From Brain All the Way to Heart’: The 2008 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry.” The Lion and the Unicorn 32, no. 3 (2008): 344 – 356.  

---. “Message in a Bottle: The 2007 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry.” The Lion and the Unicorn 31, no. 3 (2007): 264 – 281.  

Styles, Morag. From the Garden to the Street: An Introduction to 300 Years of Poetry for Children. London: Cassell, 1998.  

Sullivan, Ed. “Fiction or Poetry?: A Librarian Looks at the Profusion of Novels Written in Verse.” School Library Journal 49, no. 8 (2003): 44 – 45. 

Sutton, Roger. “An Interview with Virginia Euwer Wolff.” The Horn Book Magazine 77, no. 3 (2001): 280 – 286. 

Tarr, Anita. “‘Still So Much Work to be Done’: Taking Up the Challenge of Children’s Poetry.” Children’s Literature 28 (2000): 195 – 201. 

Tarr, Anita, and Richard Flynn. “‘The Trouble Isn’t Making Poems, the Trouble’s Finding Somebody That Will Listen To Them’: Negotiating a Place for Poetry in Children’s Literature Studies.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 27, no. 1 (2002): 2 – 3. 

Thomas, Joseph T., Jr., JonArno Lawson, and Richard Flynn. “‘It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Aint’ Got That Swing)’: The 2006 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry.” The Lion and the Unicorn 30, no. 3 (2006): 383 – 397.  

Thomas, Joseph T., Jr. “Mel Glenn and Arnold Adoff: The Poetics of Power in the Adolescent Voice-lyric.” Style 35, no. 3 (2001): 486 – 497.  

---. Poetry’s Playground: The Culture of Contemporary American Children’s Poetry. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2007. 

Van Sickle, Vikki. “Subcategories Within the Emerging Genre of the Verse Novel.” The Looking Glass: New Perspectives on Children’s Literature 10, no. 3 (2006). 

Wissman, Kelly. “‘Spinning Themselves into Poetry’: Images of Urban Adolescent Writers in Two Novels for Young Adutls.” Children’s Literature in Education 40, no. 2 (2009): 149 – 166.