Current Reads & Reviews: Poetry - Novel in Verse

Sones, Sonya. What My Mother Doesn't Know. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young                  Readers, 2001. ISBN: 0689871147

Summary: A novel written in prose, this is a story of a young girl, a freshman in high school, who sees love interests at every turn. A story of lust, love, loss, and friendship. Every girl seems to go through the roller coaster of emotions that Sophie experiences here all the while learning the difference between lust and love. A book every girl can relate to!

Analysis: Sonya Sones has a way with words! Alliteration sprinkled here and there..."deceitful despicable" and "giggling gabfest." Metaphors and imagery that lyrically paint the picture for the reader... "I step into the steam and let water rinse my body clean while rivers flow in ribbons down my arms." Similes..."their shrieking whips around inside me like a tornado." I found myself gasping at times then laughing out loud at others. Each pages flows with figurative language entices our senses... "His little finger finds mine, hooking us together, and all the clatter of the corridor fades away till the only sound I can hear is the whispering of our fingers." A few are concrete poems taking shape with the words like in I Wish while others have a rhyming scheme like in Long Weekend...

"Forty-eight hours

of silence go by.

Forty-eight hours

alone.

Forty-eight hours

is such a long time

to sit

and stare

at the phone."

Sones write with boldness, sometimes to create shock value when touching on tough topics like ethnicity or sex. My absolute favorite page is the one called More or Less...

"If Dylan and I had met

by chatting on the Net

in a room in cyberspace

instead of face to face

and I hadn't seen his lips

or the way he moves his hips

when he does that sexy dance

and I hadn't had a chance

to look into his eyes

or be dazzled by their size

and all that I had seen

were his letters on my screen, 

then I might as well confess:

I think I would have like him

less."

I truly enjoyed this quick read and moved right on into the sequel What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know.

Accolades/Scholarly Reviews: South Carolina Book Award Nominee for Young Adult Book Award (2004); Michigan Library Association Thumbs Up! Award Nominee (2002); Iowa Teen Award (2006); Missouri Gateway Readers Award Nominee (2004) and many more.

From Publisher's Weekly: "Drawing on the recognizable cadence of teenage speech, the author poignantly captures the tingle and heartache of being young and boy-crazy. She weaves separate free verse poems into a fluid and coherent narrative with a satisfying ending."

Connections: Read the companion novel told by the boyfriend's perspective. Have the students write about a relationship gone wrong or about one gone right, then ask them to write it again but from the other person's perspective.