OBD Novels in Verse - YOUTH

Twelve-year-old Adnan dreams of making it to the Ultimate Table Tennis championship, but when tragedy strikes his family, Adnan loses his passion for table tennis and must learn to channel his grief and heal.

Told in verse, Ellie lives by Fat Girl Rules to avoid being bullied, but with the support of her dad, her therapist and her neighbor Catalina, can Ellie set aside these rules and just be herself?

Perfect for fans of Hatchet and the I Survived series, this harrowing middle grade debut novel-in-verse from a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet tells the story of a young girl who wakes up one day to find herself utterly alone in her small Colorado town. When twelve-year-old Maddie hatches a scheme for a secret sleepover with her two best friends, she ends up waking up to a nightmare. She's alone--left behind in a town that has been mysteriously evacuated...

In 1939 six-year-old Henry, who is deaf, is taken from his family and placed in a home for the feeble-minded where, years later, his friends include a conscientious objector serving there during World War II. Includes historical notes.

"Fifth-grader Claire can do a perfect triple handspring. She can do a giant pirouette on the uneven bars. What she can't do is reading. With a lot of effort, she hides her secret until an alert vice principle suggests she get evaluated for a learning disability. Now Claire has to convince her mother--who's afraid her daughter will be labeled 'stupid'--to let her get tested. And that turns out to be even harder than reading"-- Provided by publisher....

After the death of his best friend and the only other trans boy at school, Noah starts writing letters expressing his feelings to the humanoid creature Mothman and risks everything when he treks into the woods to prove Mothman's existence.

"Twelve-year-old Caera Donovan and her family flee a wildfire bearing down on their hometown of Pine Grove, with no time to find Caera's beloved dog Mike. Faced with the loss of everything she knows, Caera can't stand to lose Mike as well and seeks a way to sneak back to Pine Grove. When her plans are thwarted, she must learn to embrace a new definition of "home.""-- Provided by publisher.

"Capturing the shock and reverberations of the COVID-19 pandemic through poetry, as Garvey's life goes into lockdown and his father becomes sick, Garvey must find a way to use his newfound musical skills to bring hope to both his father and himself"-- Provided by publisher.

Twelve-year-old Beatrice Miller copes with the ups and downs of friendships, puberty, and identity, guided by the wisdom and love of her beloved Mamaw and mom, the summer before seventh grade.

In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.