These three verse novels, from Ireland, Canada and New Zealand, offer a surprisingly accessible way for middle-grade and young adult readers to encounter some difficult subjects.

By Ruth Donnelly

I read my first verse novel earlier this year – reluctantly, I admit – and was blown away by the breadth of human feeling that can be captured in so few words. It really felt like I’d discovered a whole new world of reading possibilities, and I immediately insisted my fourteen-year-old son read it too. Like me, he didn’t really fancy it, not being a big poetry reader, but he was similarly hooked and read the whole book from start to finish in two days. That book was Manjeet Mann’s excellent Run Rebel, and in fact my son loved the verse novel form so much that he went out the next day and spent a book token that had been burning a hole in his pocket on Joseph Coelho’s The Boy Lost in the Maze, another fantastic verse novel for young adult readers. Which got me thinking: these books have clearly sparked something in my son, whose reading interests have become more restricted since he hit his teens. I think what he likes about them is that the pages aren’t filled with daunting levels of dense text, but the actual content of the text that is there is incredibly powerful, so you feel like you’re rushing through a story at 100 miles an hour, but somehow still have time to enjoy the view. So maybe verse novels from other countries could present an interesting and accessible way for kids and teens to engage with other cultures (so long as they’re able to overcome any initial poetry-related misgivings of course!). I had a hunt for some verse novels from around the world aimed at children and teens, and came up with the following three. If you know any more, please let me know!

Iris and Me

Iris and Me is a young adult verse novel, telling the astonishing life story of Iris Wilkinson, a New Zealand journalist, poet and author who wrote under the pen name Robin Hyde. Related by an unnamed narrator (their identity is revealed partway through the book, but I won’t spoil the surprise), the plot follows the writer as she ventures forth from New Zealand in 1938, aiming to take the Trans-Siberian Express across Asia and Europe to get to England. When she reaches China – already at war with Japan – however, her journalistic instinct takes over and she determines to make her way to the front and see the fighting first hand.

Interspersed with extracts from letters home and newspaper headlines, as well as flashbacks to earlier episodes in Iris’ life, this book feels hectic at times, but you soon realise that is fully intentional. Iris achieved and experienced more in her relatively short life (she died in 1939, aged just 33 – although that is only alluded to in this story) than most of us can even dream of, although not all of it was positive. As a single woman trying to make her way in the world at that time and with a long-term leg injury that left her unable to walk without support, she faced numerous challenges, but rose to them all. So Iris and Me is a rollercoaster of a book to reflect its heroine’s rollercoaster of a life. It deservedly won the Young Adult Fiction award at the NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults in 2023, and if you can’t find it in bookshops where you live, the publisher is happy to sell direct to overseas customers.

Solo

Another award-winning verse novel (2025 An Post Irish Book Awards Teen & YA Book of the Year), Solo is about 16-year-old Daisy, who is just entering the final furlong of her school life and is preparing to sit her leaving cert (the book very helpfully includes a glossary of Ireland-specific terminology at the front, enabling me to inform you that this is the exam all Irish teens take before they leave school. There’s a clue in the name). Until recently, Daisy has been a passionate classical musician, but when we first meet her she is suffering her first heartbreak as well as a fallout with her closest friend, and as the world as she knows it begins to fall apart so too does her interest in music.

The verse novel format really comes into its own in this book, which takes full advantage of the possibilities offered in terms of experimentation with form and language. Musical terms are employed throughout and musicality pulses through the verse, lending an emotional weight to the story that I think would have been difficult to achieve in prose. In many ways, this is the classic young adult coming-of-age story, but told in a really fresh and exciting way, and I would defy anyone to get through it without shedding a tear!

Planting Sunshine

In this middle-grade verse novel, protagonist Theo is confused and upset by images on TV of a war in a far-off country. Theo’s father, concerned his son might be developing an unhealthy obsession with the conflict, deflects his questions and tries to distract him, but Theo only becomes more determined to understand why the war is happening and how it can be stopped. His friends at school aren’t interested, and with his father refusing to engage with the subject Theo feels increasingly scared and alone. However, after he meets a girl using graffiti doves as an outlet for her own frustration, and aided by his elderly neighbour, Theo eventually finds a way to feel like he is doing something to help the situation, and so begins to feel at peace.

Aimed at ages eight to 12, this story feels very age appropriate in terms of its descriptions of the horrors of war, and – true to verse novel tradition – it condenses a lot of complex emotions into a few carefully chosen words. I would argue that this might also be a useful read for parents of sensitive kids, as it offers a salutory lesson about the importance of dealing with anxiety triggers head on.

About Ruth Donnelly

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