Helen Frost

CROSSING STONES (Young Adult: 12 and up)

It's 1917--Muriel Jorgensen is not happy that all the boys she knows are heading overseas to fight in the war we now call World War I. Her teacher and her mother think she should be careful in expressing her opinions, and even her best friend Emma doesn't share her belief that women should have the right to vote.

In poems spoken in the voices of Muriel, Emma, and Muriel's brother Ollie, CROSSING STONES takes us through nine months in the lives of two families living on opposite sides of Crabapple Creek in rural Michigan as the war, the women's suffrage movement, and the flu epidemic alter the lives of the characters and the history of the world.

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DIAMOND WILLOW (ages 8 and up; ideal for middle school)
Set in interior Alaska, Diamond Willow tells the story of 12-year-old Willow, a dogmusher, and her lead dog, Roxy. The story is told in diamond-shaped poems in Willow's voice, with prose sections in the voices of animal characters.

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MONARCH AND MILKWEED (Picture Book / lyrical nonfiction)
Last summer, I raised and released over 100 monarchs. I bring in the eggs to protect them from wasps, which are even better at finding them than I am, and then when the caterpillars hatch, I feed them milkweed from my garden until they turn into chrysalises, and, about 12 days later, butterflies.


Now the descendants of those monarchs have made the return journey from Mexico back to Indiana, and my picture book, with beautiful illustrations by Leonid Gore, is finding its way into readers' hands!

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THE BRAID (Young Adult: 12 and up)
A novel-in-poems for Young Adults

Two sisters, Sarah and Jeannie, are separated during the Highland Clearances in Scotland in 1850. Their stories are told in alternating narrative poems, braided at the edges in a form invented for this book, inspired by Celtic knotwork.

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KEESHA'S HOUSE (Young Adult: 12 and up)
2004 Printz Honor Book (ALA)

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SPINNING THROUGH THE UNIVERSE (ages 8 and up; ideal for upper elementary)
Twenty-six students, their teacher, and the school custodian create the story of this fictional 5th grade classroom.

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