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Not long after emerging in the 1990s as a "new" literary form for children and young adults, the verse novel began to earn a reputation for attracting reluctant readers and students with reading disabilities. Librarians, teachers, authors, and critics have all postulated that even though verse novels are popular among striving and thriving readers, they hold a special appeal for readers who struggle (Farish; Napoli and Ritholz 31; O'Neal 39; Sutton 282; Vardell 27). Many experts have offered multiple explanations for the verse novel's reputed accessibility. The most commonly cited include generous amounts of white space, an economic use of language, dramatic storylines that elicit strong emotions, and an intimate narrative voice (Alexander 270–71, Campbell 614–16, Farish; Napoli and Ritholz 31–34; O'Neal 39; Vardell 27). As a middle school librarian, I frequently receive requests from reading and language arts teachers for books to use with students who struggle with or dislike reading. These same students, when assigned to select a "free-choice" book, also come to me on their own for recommendations. In recent years, I have found well-written verse novels to be among the best-received recommendations I make among both students and teachers. In this essay, I explore how and why Margarita Engle's The Wild Book (2012) is exceptionally suited to children who find reading difficult or disengaging, especially those whose difficulties are due to dyslexia.
The Wild Book serves as an interesting case study of verse novels' appeal to struggling readers, not only because it is a well-written example of the genre, but also because the narrator, Fefa, is herself a struggling reader. The Wild Book was well-received critically, with multiple starred reviews and appearances on notable and best-of lists. Engle is a Pura Belpré and Lee Bennet Hopkins Poetry Award winner, a Newbery Honor recipient, and was named the Young People's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation in 2017. In her author's note, Engle identifies Fefa (who is a fictionalized version of Engle's maternal grandmother) as dyslexic (125). Like Engle's grandmother, Fefa is diagnosed with "word blindness," which, as Engle explains, is an antiquated medical term used to describe dyslexia (125). Growing up in the highly unstable political climate of Cuba in the early twentieth century, Fefa struggles in school. Nevertheless, she...