Review: Cold Skin by Steven Herrick

Today, in January Magazine’s children’s section, contributing editor Sue Bursztynski reviews Cold Skin by Steven Herrick. Says Bursztynski:

Verse novels are good, at school level, for encouraging reluctant readers. Each “chapter” need only take a page or two and a lot of meaning can be conveyed in a few words. You can tell the story from the viewpoint of several different characters in a way that just wouldn’t work in prose, and get into the minds of each of them with the minimum of description and detail.

You have to be good at it, though; if you aren’t capable of telling a story with some depth, you might as well not bother trying a book in verse. Margaret Wild, best-known in Australia as the author of a number of very good picture books, has, in recent years, written some first-rate young adult verse novels, probably helped by her skill in telling the maximum story in the minimum of words.

The most prolific author in the field, though, is Steven Herrick. Herrick has been telling stories in verse for young readers, from children to young adults, for many years, in between visiting schools as a performance poet.

The full review is here.