Grow: A Novel in Verse By Juanita Havill

Reading Level: 3-5
Genre: Poetry/Novel

This novel is written only in poems and is about two people, Kate and Berneetha who decide to create a garden in the abandon lot in their neighborhood.  Kate and Berneetha couldn't be more opposite.  Kate is a twelve year old girl and Berneetha is a former teacher that Kate discribes as older than her mom.  Both get so wrapped up in the project but then a developer says that they are going to turn the garden into a parking lot.  Now the whole neighborhood has to whether or not to come together and fight to keep the garden.

I would use this book as an example of poetry.  With this poetry becasue it is also a novel I could talk about how some poetry can be used to tell stories and then talk about the different types of poetry and which ones would be useful for writing a novel like this and which ones wouldn't.  I would then have my students take a story that they had already written and turn it into poetry to get the same story across.