If you liked Love That Dog, you’ll love Rhyme Schemer by K.A. Holt, another verse novel from the perspective of a boy who says he’s not crazy about poetry… but his cleverly-written stanzas tell us otherwise. Kevin rants about a bully at school, his complicated family, and just about everything that is going wrong in his life. One way he deals is by masquerading as a sort of poetry bandit, anonymously plastering the school with torn out pages of library books, on which he’s circled, blacked out, and doodled on the letters and words to compose a poem. If Kevin is found out, the kids would make him “King of the School,” but on the other hand he could also get himself suspended.

Book reviewed by Erin E., Youth Services Programming Coordinator