Sharon Creech's _Moo: A Novel_

The Plot: Sharon Creech's (2016) verse novel Moo: A Novel tells the story of twelve-year-old Reena. Reena moves with her younger brother, Luke, and her parents from the big city to Maine, where they encounter an old woman named Mrs. Falala. Mrs. Falala owns a farm and a stubborn cow named Zora. After a few strange meetings with Mrs. Falala, Reena and Luke's parents volunteer them to work on the farm helping Mrs. Falala clean and care for Zora the cow and her other farm animals. While Reena and Luke are at first skeptical and even scared of the old woman and her cow, they eventually grow quite fond of her. Luke, an avid drawer, spends time teaching Mrs. Falala to draw, while Reena works diligently to train Zora. With the help of a young man named Zep, Reena begins to train to show Zora at the county fair. The novel ends with Reena and Zora's first time showing at the fair, and an unexpected twist involving Mrs. Falala.

The Poetry: Creech's verse novel follows her previous work in this form, Love That Dog (2001), Hate That Cat (2008), and Heartbeat (2004), in that it uses free verse  throughout the narrative, in addition to concrete poetry and varied typography in several poems. Despite the fact that in Moo the emphasis is most often placed upon the narrative arc, instead of poetic devices and techniques, Creech does use the broken line, white space, and typographical variances in order to emphasize the significance of particular moments in the narrative and to encourage the reader to spend more time on the page. For example, in the poem "Back to Twitch Street," Creech uses imagery and typography to create a distinct picture in the reader's mind of life on the farm:

with the open attic window

and the

           f  l  u  t  e     m  u  s  i  c

                       drift

                               ing

                                     d

                                     o

                                     w

                                     n (61)

In this excerpt from "Back to Twitch Street," Reena and Luke return to the farm after riding their bikes through pastures and past views of the ocean. They are truly captivated by the scenes of the country after growing up in the city. Throughout the narrative, Reena and Luke are captivated the the flute music they hear Mrs. Falala playing from her attic window. They never seen her play, but they come to learn that her flute music and attic space help her practice "remembering."

The Page: The 74 poems that make up Creech's verse novel Moo trace the experiences of pre-teen Reena as she moves from the city to the country and transforms from an indoor girl to an outdoor girl. Creech's Moo was a fine verse novel that represents a growing trend in the blend of free verse, prose sections, and concrete poetry in the verse novel for middle grade readers. I give Moo three stars.

Ellen Hopkins's _Traffick_

The Plot: Traffick (2015) is the sequel to Ellen Hopkins's Tricks, and in it Hopkins presents the intertwining narratives of five teenagers from across the country who are living in Vegas and have been victimized by sex trafficking. As a sequel narrative, Traffick focuses on each characters' attempt to become a survivor of trafficking and their individual, rocky roads to recovery. The first character introduced is Cody, who wakes up in the hospital after being show to find that he is paralyzed from the waist down. Cody's struggles with gambling led him to sex work. Next, the story shifts to Ginger, who runs away from home with her girlfriend Alex after years of her mother selling her to men for drugs, but is eventually arrested for soliciting an undercover cop. Ginger is living in House of Hope, a Christian center for young sex workers looking to become survivors. Ginger practices writing her story through poetry while at House of Hope. Next, the narrative moves to Seth, a farm boy from Indiana whose father kicked him out after he came out to him. After a string of boyfriends, Seth finds the only way to survive is to begin working for an escort service. He also volunteers part-time at the YouCenter serving LGBTQ youth. After Seth, readers are introduced to Whitney, a girl from a wealthy family whose boyfriend/pimp Bryn facilitated her trafficking and heroin addiction. After the police find her, she is placed by her family in a five-star rehab facility called Clean Slate. Finally, the narrative turns to Eden, a preacher's daughter who after escaping from an abusive, religious facility called Tears of Zion, turns to prostitution to survive. After wandering into a Catholic church, Eden is directed to Walk Straight, a rescue for teen prostitutes intent on a better life. The narratives alternate every 10 pages or so for 500 pages.

The Poetry: Hopkin's Traffick is told through a series of alternating narratives. Each time a new character is introduced, a poem "written by" that character or someone close to them leads off the section. The poems are told in free verse and are typically one to three pages in length. Often, Hopkins will include a poem that manipulates the space on the page in order to isolate a specific phrase that can be read inside the poem, but also vertically as its own entity. For example, the first page of the verse novel is a poem written by Cody Bennett; it contains four stanzas with four lines justified left and four single lines appearing after each stanza justified right. The lines justified right form the phrase: "the abyss,... / would be... / preferable to... / this living hell" (1). Each right justified line can also be read as part of the larger poem, as in the first five lines:

The courage to leap

the brink, free-fall

beyond the precipice,

hurtle toward

                                                     the abyss, (1).

The Page: In addition to the manipulation of space on the page, Hopkins also makes use of varied font to depict when characters write poetry or letters. Hopkins includes a detailed author's note in which she explains the research she did for Tricks and Traffick, relates the significance of the project to her, and provides a list of resources for young people. Overall though, I found Hopkins's writing in Traffick to be lacking. One of the biggest issues with the narrative is that it tried to develop the stories of too many characters, which became confusing as a reader and almost trivialized the horrific experiences of child sex trafficking being related. In addition to the five primary characters, readers are also introduced to a myriad of other characters who also share their unique stories of victimization. Ultimately, Hopkins verse novels are more successful when they focus on fewer characters. The inclusion of poems "written by" characters in addition to their narratives was interesting, but got lost in the chaos of narrative. I give Hopkins's Traffick two stars.

J. J. Johnson's _Believarexic_

The Plot: J. J. Johnson's 2015 Believarexic is an "autobiographical novel" that recounts a ten week period of the author's life during the late 1980s when she lived in an inpatient eating disorder unit. In the beginning of the narrative, 15-year-old Jennifer struggles to convince her family that she needs help, but ultimately they accompany her to her screening interview and she is admitted to the treatment facility. During her hospitalization, Jennifer is treated for bulimarexia, a combination of bulimia and anorexia, and as the narrative unfolds, Jennifer learns that her eating disorder is really just the most visible aspect of her mental health issues. She ultimately discovers that she is an alcoholic, suffers from depression and anxiety, and has unhealthy relationships with both of her parents. The narrative follows her life on the EDU (eating disorder unit) as she attempts to develop positive friendships, learns to interact with the staff on her unit, and moves away from negative relationships with her family members. Ultimately, Jennifer emerges at the end of the novel having moved forward in her own recovery; Believarexic seems to be not only a typical eating disorder focused problem novel, but also a cathartic expression for the author.

The Poetry: Formally, Believarexic has a complicated and somewhat unique approach. The work is divided into six sections: "Before," "Admission," "Stage One," "Stage Two," "Stage Three," and "Discharge." The first three sections, which comprise about half of the book, are told in third person point of view and utilize free verse, while the last three sections are told in first person point of view and employ prose. Furthermore, the narrative as a whole functions as a kind of diary/scrapbook. Dated entries span the entire work, both in the free verse and prose sections, and various treatment focused documents are sporadically inserted throughout as well (including letters, group therapy worksheets, treatment planning objects, facility rules, and so on). As previously mentioned, this work is certainly part of the problem novel tradition, as are most YA texts focused on eating disorders, but this work seems particularly interesting in terms of its use of formal collage. Moreover, the shift from free verse to prose and third person to first person point of view as the protagonist progresses in her recovery seems to suggest the emotion state of the character. Free verse seems to imply a sense of fragmentation, while the third person point of view emphasizes a distance and slows the reading pace. The formal and narrative shift to first person in the second half of the narrative suggests a sense of connection and encourages more intimate reader involvement in the protagonist's experiences. While the reader is encouraged to lose herself in the narrative (because of the use of first person, engaging narration) during the second half, the first half of the narrative asks the reader to spend more time piecing together fragments of verse, voice, and experience.

The Page: In addition to the formal experimentation and assemblage in the narrative, Johnson also employs varying fonts between the first two sections (typewriter-style) and the final four (traditional Times New Roman), as well as gray pages to denote supplemental documents that appear within the diary narrative.

Johnson's narrative was an interesting experiment in form. I would categorize Believarexic more as a hybrid verse novel, as it certainly does employ verse and poetic techniques in half of the narrative. While the narrative was engaging, the author could have made more use of the verse form throughout the first half. I give Believarexic three stars.

Holly Bodger's _5 to 1_

The Plot: Holly Bodger's 2015 verse novel 5 to 1 is a polyvocal dystopian narrative that tells the story of Sudasa and Kiran, a teenage girl and boy growing up in India in the year 2054. After years of the government's one-child policy, there are five boys for every one girl in the country; fed up with the commodification of girls, a group of women found a new country called Koyanagar. In Koyanagar, girls are also highly prized, but the government sets up a series of seven tests so that every boy, no matter how rich or poor, has the opportunity to "win" a wife. Sudasa, the middle sister in a wealthy family, does not want to be a wife, although her grandmother with a high ranking position in the government is set on using her marriage as a way to pay a debt she owes. When Sudasa realizes her marriage contest has been rigged (as her cousin is one of the competitors, given an edge by her grandmother), she becomes determined to subvert the tests in some way. Kiran, or contestant five as he is referred to throughout most of the narrative, is a poor farmer boy from the coast. He does not want to be married either, and he has a plan to use the tests to his advantage as well, but finds that he feels a connection with Sudasa that he did not expect.

The Poetry: Bodger's verse novel alternates perspectives and styles; Sudasa's chapters are in verse, while Kiran's chapters are in prose. Like many other verse narratives, Bodger's utilizes the manipulation of space and the gaps created by line breaks to encourage a slowing of narrative pace and reader contemplation. Bodger also makes use of anaphora, variations in typography, strikethrough/underline/bold text, and arrows. Each of these elements draws attention to the words on the page and enacts many of the features of more standard visual or concrete poetry. At times these poetic techniques can seem gimmicky. One of the stronger poetic devices that Bodger uses is the reference to William Blake. Sudasa is depicted as a lover of poetry and she and her father often quote Blake. For example in the final poem, "34," Sudasa's father speaks to her in code using a quote from Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, a text that mixes poetry, prose, and image: "Remember, beti,/ no bird soars too high,/ if he soars with his own wings" (236). Her father then follows up with a secret message to help Sudasa make a decision about her future: "And sometime, when wings burn,/ they rise from the ash/ as fins in turn" (237). Blake's exploration of contraries and his insistence upon the necessity of both in his The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is interestingly reflected in Bodger's verse novel about the two extremes of the prizing of boys vs. the prizing of girls in culture.

The Page: 5 to 1 is organized into three parts, each part representing a day of the tests. Each part is then further separated into chapters that explore the narrative from Sudasa and Kiran's point of view. Each chapter includes a varying illustration that depicts an image of a woman/fish hybrid, and each part includes an illustrated image of a pair of hands with mehndi or henna designs (typically applied to women's hands during Hindu wedding ceremonies) featuring the same woman/fish hybrid.

I found 5 to 1 to be an interesting read, and it is one of the first ever dystopian verse novels I have encountered. I give it three stars.

Linda Oatman High's _A Heart Like Ringo Starr_

The Plot: Linda Oatman High's 2015 A Heart Like Ringo Starr tells the story of 17-year-old Faith Hope Stevens who is awaiting a heart transplant. Faith, who has been sick since she was born, is home-schooled, and her family runs a funeral home, so death seems to always be a part of her life. The narrative follows Faith through her experience of being on the transplant list, to discovering that she will receive a heart transplant, to her life with a new heart and the uncertainties and surprises that arise from this transition in her life. Before her transplant, Faith is depicted as cynical, and she expects that it is not just a matter of if she will die but when. After she receives a new heart, she feels unsure of who she is and longs to have her old, defective heart back. Faith starts her senior year at high school (it is not as exciting as she thought it would be and she feels on-display and invisible at the same time), and she meets a young man while at the beach with her great aunt. The narrative moves surprisingly quickly through each of these events and has a closed, happily-ever-after ending.

The Poetry: Throughout the verse novel, Oatman High utilizes a significant amount of end and internal rhyme, as well as a considerable amount of white space. These two poetic techniques seem at odds with each other throughout the collection. The use of rhyme speeds the narrative up, which seems to contradict the serious subject matter. The white space created by the use of short lines, half-blank page, and alternatively left and right justified text might usually act as a method to slow the reader's pace in verse novels, while in A Heart Like Ringo Starr these techniques juxtaposed with the extensive use of rhyme and the sporadic changes in typography do not seem as purposeful. For example, in the poem "Wintertime," three four to five line stanzas include only one to five words and the facing page leave the top half of the page blank and includes two similarly short stanzas that end the poem:

Bummer.

I so

want summer.

Popsicles.

Not icicles.

This pedicure tickles

                                 my

                                         toes (9).

This use of rhyme and space on the page does little in terms of narrative work or linguistic play, and ultimately the poem falls flat. Other poems such as the title poem, "A Heart Like Ringo Starr" (91), are on the verge of successfully exploring a character's thoughts and feelings with rhyme, rhythm, and lyricism, but in the end the poem is less impactful because of the author's choice of line length and use of white space.

The Page: A Heart Like Ringo Starr is divided into two parts that follow Faith before and after her transplant. As previously noted, the poems make use of white space and typography play. It seems that the author made some of her choices because she sees her work appealing to "reluctant readers." This argument for the use of white space and short lines as inviting to readers because less appears on the page seems to be a mistake and a view that doesn't take young readers seriously as an audience. Ultimately, white space and poetic language within a verse novel are most successful when they encourage a reader to slow down and meditate upon the narrative, emotion, and meaning.

I give Oatman High's verse novel two stars.