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The Verse-novel: A New Genre

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This article examines the verse-novel, a genre that has gained some prominence in children’s fiction in the last ten years. Reasons why this may be so are suggested and the chief evolving characteristics of the genre in both content and style are discussed. Notable examples of the verse-novel from Australia, the USA and the UK are analysed. Criteria are proposed by which the form can be evaluated. It appears to be a genre whose time has come.

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Authors
  1. Joy Alexander
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Additional information

Joy Alexander was a secondary school teacher for twenty years before taking up her present position in 1995 as a lecturer in education in the Graduate School of Education at Queen’s University, Belfast, where she has responsibility for the training of prospective English teachers. She has published a number of articles on matters relating to English teaching and her interest in children’s literature has been expressed in articles on C.S. Lewis and on L.M. Montgomery.

Sharon Creech web-site: http://sharoncreech.co.uk/ Steven Herrick web-site: http://www.acay.com.au/~sherrick/welcome.html Steven Herrick interview; http://www.scholastic.com.au/classroom/class_main_item.asp?issue Id=10&articleId= 41 Sonya Sones web-site: http://www.sonyasones.com/greatbooks.htm

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Alexander, J. The Verse-novel: A New Genre. Child Lit Educ 36, 269–283 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-005-5974-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-005-5974-z

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