Rhyme Schemer by K.A. Holt

I read some great books on my airplanes to and from the Texas Library Association Convention in San Antonio this week. On the way to Texas, I finished UPSIDE DOWN IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, a heartbreakingly wonderful Hurricane Katrina story from Julie Lamana. I loved this book & reviewed it here.

On the return trip, I read this…

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The wonderful Tamra Tuller of Chronicle Books put RHYME SCHEMER by K.A. Holt into my hands when I stopped by the booth to say hello on Wednesday. “You’ll love it,” she promised. “It’s about a bully who gets bullied, and it’s a novel in verse and it’s funny and it just invites so many neat poetry activities.”  She was right – I did love it, and all of that is true.

7th grader Kevin is not exactly a model student when the book opens. He shoves other kids around, makes fun of them, and rips pages from library books to create “found poetry” that he leaves around school.  Typical troublemaker, except…he writes poetry. When Kevin’s beloved notebook is lost and found by a rival, the tables turn, and Kevin finds his whole way of dealing with people turned upside down.

This is a terrific middle school book. The white space of the verse and the defacing-books-to-make-poems element give it special appeal for the reluctant reader crowd, but it’s really a book that many different kinds of kids will love. Coming Fall ’14 from Chronicle Bookks.

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