Featured poetry and verse picks

This love letter to Black life in the United States highlights the unspeakable trauma of slavery, the faith and fire of the civil rights movement, and the grit, passion and perseverance of some of the world's greatest heroes.

An anthology of contemporary Black poets whose works explore joy, love, origin, race, resistance and praise.

This collection of poems celebrates Judy Blume's childhood years. Growing up Jewish, during and in the aftermath of WWII, her younger years were full of fear and she processed her conflicted emotions by making up stories where she could control the conflict.

Set against the backdrop of the Great Migration, a Southern girl attends an elite girls boarding school in the North and must find the courage to be herself and to dream of a brighter future.

Moving through themes of lineage, twinship, femininity and masculinity, reclamation of Indigeneity, dance, gender roles and longing, these poems traveling from the corporeal to the cosmic, from life to death and back again.

Eighth-grader Jasper feels abandoned when his brother Callan leaves for college, so he starts their promised fossil dig alone only to hear the voice of a saber-toothed tiger calling to him as he unleashes a monster he cannot control.

Mama loves warm summers and eating cherries while stargazing with Baba and Kiddo. But on her bluest of days, she can't do the things that other mamas do. Persevering with love, no matter what phase Mama is in, this family weathers the ups and downs of a loved one's illness.

An anthology of all-star poetic voices depicting the diversity of the Black experience.

Vanessa Brantley-Newton, E.E. Charlton-Trujillo and others present poems about neurodivergent activists who have made changes in their community and in the world.

Diego Benevides is a high-achieving student whose senior year is jeopardized by his loyalty to his best friend, Lawson, who deals drugs. As Lawson's activities escalate from weed to harder substances, their "ride or die" bond faces a dangerous, heartbreaking and potentially deadly, breaking point.

A middle school classroom is given an assignment to draw either family, friend or other from a hat. They must write a brief essay on the single, most meaningful non-cash gift they could give that person.

Sent with her mother to the safety of a relative's home in Cincinnati when her Syrian hometown is overshadowed by violence, Jude worries for the family members left behind as she adjusts to a new life with unexpected surprises.