Home of the Brave and verse novels

I knew K A Applegate as the prolific author of the Animorphs series and was surprised by the change in direction with the publication of this poignant verse novel, Home of the Brave.
It tells the story, in first person poems, of a teenage boy - Kek - who comes alone from the Sudan, having lost family in the war in Darfur, to live in the USA, arriving in a cold Minnesota winter. Click here for a short video introduction to the book by the author from the Macmillan website.


Here is a link to Amazon reviews http://www.amazon.com/Home-Brave-Katherine-Applegate/dp/0312367651

and the discussion guide on the Macmillan website
http://us.macmillan.com/CMS400/uploadedFiles/FeiwelFriends/Guide%20to%20Home%20of%20the%20Brave.pdf

and here is a link to the Poetry page on the new National Library Schools website (under Creating Readers, Children's and YA Literature) which has a section on verse novels http://schools.natlib.govt.nz/creating-readers/childrens-ya-literature/poetry