It’s not nice to be jealous. But if I could write a story on the top of my refrigerator as well as Miranda July, I maybe would be one of the happiest people in the world. I’m pretty sure I would be. I’m also pretty sure my brother only had the nicest of intentions when he brought this to my attention, and so my official story here is that I’m looking this green because of all the jelly beans I ate today.
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse is a children’s novel entirely written in blank verse.
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who sometimes just writes that way. I may have been an English major in college but I’d even forgotten that this sort of writing had a name. I’d certainly forgotten (or else, I’d certainly all-but-decided to forget) that this sort of writing had any sort of legitimacy. I’ve been doing it anyway. (Ashes to ashes, and Hesse won a Newberry: Dust to dust, and I win writing while I do the laundry.)
In some ways, the story is so unremittingly tragic that it should be wildly inappropriate for children; the blank verse is so strange, meanwhile, that it should be wildly inappropriate for a legitimate author to be using it.
It works, though. The author’s theme is forgiveness, even though the only theme some of our children could see was dust.
Ah, well!
