But damn, when a verse book is done well, it is done well. The craft behind it, the voice that drives it, and the way it builds a story and character and time period and setting can make verse books spectacular. Want to get started? Let me offer up 100 YA books in verse. These range from novels to non-fiction, as this category of books is privileged to have writers who can easily navigate both through poetry. Because YA has writers who are prolific in their verse writing, I’m limiting selections to no more than 2 books per author, meaning that this list will showcase dozens and dozens of unique writers and perspectives. I’ve marked with a * those authors who have far more than two YA verse novels so that the eager can dive realllllllllly deep. Some of these flirt with the middle grade/YA line, but I’m including them because the few here add to the dynamic format. I’ve also only listed first titles in a series, in order to offer up a wider variety of reads. Finally, again in the interest of offering the widest range of books possible, I’ve included some verse titles that the entire book is not in verse, but rather, parts of it are or individual voices in a cast are. Get ready to get your verse reading on!  

 

  1. 5-to-1 by Holly Bodger
  2. After the Death of Anna Gonzales by Terri Fields
  3. After The Kiss by Tera Elan McVoy
  4. All The Broken Pieces by Ann E. Burg*
  5. All We Have is Now by Lisa Schroeder*
  6. Amiri & Odette, A Love Story by Walter Dean Myers
  7. And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard
  8. Ask Me How I Got Here by Christine Heppermann
  9. Audacious by Gabrielle Prendergrast
  10. Audacity by Melanie Crowder
  11. Audition by Stasia Ward Kehoe
  12. A Bad Boy Can Be Good For A Girl by Tanya Lee Stone
  13. Beanball by Gene Fehler
  14. Because I Am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas
  15. Becoming Billie Holiday by Carole Boston Weatherford
  16. The Braid by Helen Frost*
  17. Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes
  18. Bruiser by Neal Shusterman
  19. By the River by Steven Herrick*
  20. Caminar by Skila Brown
  21. Coaltown Jesus by Ron Koertge*
  22. Crank by Ellen Hopkins*
  23. Crash Boom Love by Juan Felipe Herrera
  24. Crazy by Linda Vigen Phillips
  25. The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
  26. The Day Before by Lisa Schroeder
  27. The Death of Jayson Porter by Jaime Adoff
  28. Displacement by Thalia Chaltas
  29. Escaping Tornado Season by Julie Williams
  30. Exposed by Kimberly Marcus
  31. Family by Micol Ostow
  32. The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette’s Journey to Cuba by Margarita Engle*
  33. Fishtailing by Wendy Phillips
  34. Forget Me Not by Carolee Dean
  35. Freakboy by Kristin Elizabeth Clark
  36. The Geography of Girlhood by Kirsten Smith
  37. Ghosting by Edith Pattou
  38. Girl Coming in for a Landing by April Halprin Wayland
  39. A Girl Named Mister by Nikki Grimes
  40. Glimpse by Carol Lynch Williams
  41. The Good Braider by Terry Farish
  42. A Heart Like Ringo Starr by Linda Oatman High
  43. Heaven Looks A Lot Like A Mall by Wendy J Maas
  44. Hidden by Helen Frost*
  45. How I Discovered Poetry by Marilyn Nelson
  46. How To (Un)cage A Girl by Francesca Lia Block
  47. Hugging The Rock by Susan Taylor Brown
  48. I Don’t Want to Be Crazy by Samantha Schutz
  49. Identical by Ellen Hopkins
  50. Karma by Cathy Ostlere
  51. Kiss of Broken Glass by Madeleine Kuderick
  52. Kissing Annabel by Stephen Herrick
  53. The Language Inside by Holly Thompson
  54. Like Water on Stone by Dana Walrath
  55. Loose Threads by Lorie Ann Grover
  56. The Lost Marble Notebook of Forgotten Girl and Random Boy by Marie Jaskulka
  57. Love and Leftovers by Sarah Tregay
  58. Make Lemonade by Virgina Euwer Wolff
  59. My Book of Life By Angel by Martine Levitt
  60. October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Lesléa Newman
  61. One by Sarah Crossan
  62. One of Those Hideous Books Where The Mother Dies by Sonya Sones*
  63. Orchards by Holly Thompson
  64. Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
  65. Out of This Place by Emma Cameron
  66. Paper Hearts by Meg Wiviott
  67. Planet Pregnancy  by Linda Oatman High
  68. Purple Daze by Sherry Shahan
  69. Psyche in a Dress by Francesca Lia Block
  70. Reaching For Sun by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer
  71. The Realm of Possibility by David Levithan
  72. The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney
  73. Rubber Houses by Ellen Yeomans
  74. Running Back to Ludie by Angela Johnson
  75. The Secret of Me by Meg Kearney
  76. Seeing Emily by Joyce Lee Wong
  77. Shakespeare Bats Clean-Up by Ron Koertge
  78. Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham
  79. Skyscraping by Cordelia Jensen
  80. Sold by Patricia McCormick
  81. Song of the Sparrow by Lisa Ann Sandell
  82. The Sound of Letting Go by Stasia Ward Kehoe
  83. Splintering by Eireann Corrigan
  84. Split Image by Mel Glenn*
  85. Street Love by Walter Dean Myers
  86. The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle
  87. Sweetgrass Basket by Marlene Carvell
  88. Three Rivers Rising: A Novel of the Johnstown Flood by Jame Richards
  89. A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman
  90. Two Girls Staring At The Ceiling by Lucy Frank
  91. Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall
  92. Unlocked by Ryan G. Van Cleave
  93. Up From The Sea by Leza Lowitz
  94. The Watch That Ends the Night by Allan Wolfe
  95. The Weight of the Sky by Lisa Ann Sandell
  96. What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones
  97. Who Killed Mr. Chippendale? A Mystery in Poems by Mel Glenn
  98. Who Will Tell My Brother? by Marlene Carvell
  99. You Remind Me of You: a Poetry Memoir by Eireann Corrigan
  100. Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill*  
100 Must Read YA Books Written in Verse - 1