K. A. Holt's _House Arrest_

The Plot: In K. A. Holt's most recent verse novel House Arrest (2015), seventh grader Timothy must write in a journal every week for the entire year of his court-ordered probation. In addition to his journal writing, Timothy must meet with his probation officer, see a therapist, and remain on house arrest as punishment for stealing a wallet and using the credit card inside to pay for his sick younger brother's medicine. Throughout the course of the narrative, the reader learns that Timothy's baby brother, Levi, has subglottic stenosis, bronchiectasis, and failure to thrive (87), and that Timothy's mother is struggling to deal with her younger son's illness as a newly single parent after the boys' father abandons the family. Timothy's family has difficulties paying for Levi's medical bills, their mortgage, grocery bills, and Levi's in-home nurses.

The Poetry: Holt's verse novel is unique in its structural and formal approach in that it is essentially a poetry journal. Each of the 52 poems in the book is entitled as a week number and includes several stanzas of varying lengths separated by a single black bullet shaped like a sunburst. The first poem "Week 1" begins with a short three line stanza that mimics a similar approach taken by Sharon Creech in her poetry notebook verse novel Love That Dog: "Boys don't write in journals,/ unless it's court-ordered./ At least, this is what I've figured" (2). Formally, Holt focuses mostly on constructing a series of free verse monologues for her character that make use of white space and the gaps created by line breaks to explore his internal thoughts and emotions. In a few poems, such as "Week 4," House Arrest nods to other poetic forms such as the haiku: "A year is a long time/ to write in a journal./ and never go to paintball parties./ That is not a haiku" (15).

The Page: In addition to each of the poems being named after a week of the year, House Arrest is also divided into four sections that are titled by the seasons of the year ("Winter," "Spring," "Summer," and "Fall"). Each section title spread includes the number of days included in that season; for example, the "Winter" spread has 91 tallies and includes 13 weeks.

I found Holt's newest verse novel fell far short of her 2014 Rhyme Schemer, which I reviewed a few weeks ago. The narrative often felt exaggeratedly sentimental and some of the details of the plot seemed a bit far fetched. I give Holt's House Arrest two stars.

K. A. Holt's _Rhyme Schemer_

The Plot: Rhyme Schemer (2014) is K. A. Holt's second verse novel for young readers (following her 2010 Brains for Lunch: A Zombie Novel in Haiku). Holt's Rhyme Schemer follows Kevin Jamison, a seventh grader who is struggling with his home life and his school life. Both of his parents are doctors who are never around, all four of his older brothers ignore him, and he and another student Robin are constantly taking turns tormenting each other. Kevin's one solace is creating poetry through erasure (by defacing classic books for young readers, which most all of his teachers and his principal frown upon). As punishment for his bullying he is forced to work shelving books in the library where he meets Mrs. Little, who encourages him in his poetry. When Robin finds Kevin's poetry notebook and begins posting his work around school, he realizes how much his poetry means to him.

The Poetry: Holt's verse novel follows Sharon Creech's Love That Dog in that it essentially functions as a young poet's writing notebook. Like Creech's verse novel for younger readers, Rhyme Schemer emphasizes the reluctant poet character, his connection to a trusted teacher/librarian, and the young poet's hidden emotional pain. For example in the poem "Friday Rescue" Mrs. Little finds Kevin outside a restaurant alone and crying after his parents send him out for making a scene at dinner. Kevin is astonished when his teacher begins to praise him in front of his parents:

She called me

A schemer, no doubt.

But also?

Smart.

Funny.

Fragile (134). 

Mrs. Little then asks to borrow Kevin and take him to a poetry open mic night at a local coffee house. One of the most interesting and innovative elements of Holt's verse novel is her use of erasure poetry; there are 10 erasure poems dispersed throughout the novel pulled from The Wind and the Willows, Peter Pan, and Hansel and Gretel, among others. There are also a series of quatrains with regular rhyme schemes that Kevin calls "Necktie Poems" (written about his principal).

The Page: Through its writing journal structure, Rhyme Schemer provides yet another unique approach to the verse novel form. Poems are titled as either days of the school year or are pasted in pages of other book pages that Kevin uses to create erasure poems. Verse novels like Holt's and Creech's certainly serve a pedagogical function in that they provide an outline for how developing writers might approach poetry. In this way, the writing journal structure in the verse novel is distinct in its approach and call to young readers who want to be writers in that the form and structure imply a participatory reader experience. The structure serves as a model, one that is referred to by other verse novelists such as Kwame Alexander, whose protagonist reads and refers to Holt's Rhyme Schemer and then creates his own erasure poems after this model.

I found K. A. Holt's Rhyme Schemer to be another fascinating exercise in form and poetic experimentation. I give it four stars.