How to use this Page

So.

There's this kid. Call him Poetry Boy, even Poetry Bandit, if you'd like. Things aren't exactly perfect home. Things aren't precisely perfect at school. But Poetry Boy has his whole life handled. He's king of his own world—finding "easy prey" within the halls, writing poems nobody sees, scratching little insider insults into the pages of old books. It's all cool, life is cool, it's all just fine (believe him), until a kid named Robin finds the book Poetry Boy has been keeping and uses it as blackmail leverage—lending life many shades of intolerable.

(Well, okay, yes. It's true. Poetry Boy might have had a thing or two coming from Robin.)

This is Rhyme Schemer, K.A. Holt's engaging, clever middle grade novel in verse, which will be released this coming fall by Tamra Tuller and Chronicle Books. I'm celebrating it today because it's poetry month, because my secret poet Elisa of Undercover really wants to meet the secret schemer, and because I will actually meet author K.A. Holt in less than a week, in the sunny city of San Antonio.

And because it's just that good. Listen:

Kelly looks at me.
Her head is on her desk, too.
Those freckles are the same color as the desk,
like the desk has splashed a little on her face.

And:

Mrs. Little looks at me sideways.
I know she wants to say something
but I don't want to listen
so I pretend I don't see
her eyes
in the corner of her face
like a hieroglyph.

Fine writing. Fine storytelling. Something very fine to be looking forward to.

Add a Comment