MEL GLEN
Author
MEL GLEN
Author
Mel Glenn is an award-winning poet and author of twelve books, including Jump Ball(DuUon 1997) and Split Image (HarperCollins 2000). Mel, born in Switzerland,,was raised in Brooklyn. After graduating college, he spent two years in the Peace Corps, (Sierra Leone), and then returned home to teach junior and senior high school in Brooklyn for 34 years. Mel retired in 2001 and now spends his time writing and appearing at schools, libraries and conferences. He and his wife, Elyse, also a retired teacher, have two sons, Jonathan a writer, and Andrew, a software engineer. Mel's website is www.melglenn.com
CLASS DISMISSED: High School Poems By Mel Glenn 1982 (Hardcover) 1991 Clarion Books Paperback: 96 pages Publisher: Clarion Books (April 22, 1991)
ISBN-10: 0395581117 ISBN-13: 978-0395581117 
Have you ever felt that school isn’t something to be taken seriously? Received too much advice about a boy you like? Know someone who calls the baseball diamond “home” because a drunk father makes his home life unbearable? Then you will feel as if you know Benjamin, Laurie, and Danny- and the other students speaking out about their lives and feelings in these poems. They evoke many different emotions- some pleasurable, some painful- but all a part of high school today.
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ISBN-10: 0899194435 ISBN-13: 978-0899194431
Falling in love or falling out of love, making the grade or missing the mark, many of the fictional high school students in this book are groping to get a handle on their lives. No wonder Wendy Tarloff insists she wants “a slow, easy ride to maturity,” and Nolan Davis asks a fun house mirror “Will I ever see a clear image of myself?”
Reviews:
"The 70 poems are fresh and crisp; they cut to the bone of adolescent life" - Starred Review, School Library Journal
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MY FRIEND'S GOT PROBLEM CL by Mel Glenn (Author), Michael Bernstein (Illustrator) Hardcover: 103 pages Publisher: Clarion Books (September 23, 1991) 
ISBN-10: 0899198333 ISBN-13: 978-0899198330
Parents who don’t care, teachers who don’t understand, a little brother who’s a pest, a guy or girl who doesn’t know if you’re alive- if you’re a high school student, or know someone who is, then you know about problems like these. Perhaps – like Arthur Gabriel and Roxanne DeVerona - you’ve asked, “Does she like me?” or “Is he the one?” Or you may have wondered, as Terrance Kane does, when the pain of a breakup would go away.
Through the door of the guidance counselor’s office come Arthur, Roxanne, Terrance, and many others. Five days a week, eight periods a day, students- and some parents as well- bring Mr. Candler their questions, problems, sorrows, and dreams. Pull up a chair and listen, along with Mr. Candler. You may recognize some of these people as friends, as classmates… or as yourself.
Reviews:
"Continuing the series of poems he began in Class Dismissed! (Clarion), Glenn provides further slice-of-life vignettes about high school, this time as seen through the eyes of a guidance counselor. The accounts of the pressures on students brought on by exams, parents, sex, and drugs are painfully honest and direct." – Horn Book
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NOVELS IN VERSE
WHO KILLED Mr. CHIPPENDALE?: A Mystery in Poems By Mel Glenn 1996 (Hardcover) 1999 (Paperback) 112 pages Publisher: Puffin (April 1, 1999) 
ISBN-10: 0140385134 ISBN-13: 978-0140385137
It’s just a regular day at a regular high school… until popular English teacher Mr. Chippendale is shot while taking his morning run around the school track. As the Tower High community struggles to come to grips with the shocking murder, you’ll get to know the students and faculty members whose lives Mr. Chippendale touched: Cynthia Arroyo, the aspiring writer who was encouraged by Mr. Chippendale; Angela Falcone, a guidance counselor and Mr. Chippendale’s ex-girlfriend; John Belarus, the student who failed Mr. Chippendale’s class, and is glad to see his teacher dead; and many others. This series of interlocking free-verse poems reveals the inner thoughts of Tower High’s students and faculty, and ultimately, the answer to the burning question - Who really did kill Mr. Chippendale?
Reviews:
"Glenn delivers a starkly realistic view of modern high-school life. A clever idea, executed in a thoughtful, compelling, and thoroughly accessible manner." – School Library Journal
"Veterans of YA literature know to expect great things from Mel Glenn. This is a great read." – Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy
Awards: |
THE TAKING of ROOM 114: A Hostage Drama in Poems By Mel Glenn 1997 Lodestar Books Reading level: Young Adult Hardcover: 192 pages 
ISBN-10: 0525675485 ISBN-13: 978-0525675488
Students in Mr. Wiedermeyer’s senior history class are in for a shock when they attend one of their last classes of the year. Held hostage by their gun-toting teacher, they all wonder if this might be not only the end of school… but also their lives.
Trapped in the classroom, the students think about their years at Tower High. Five poems about each teen- as a freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, and on the day they are held hostage, reveal the dreams, secrets, and fears of modern teens in an urban high school.
As police, school administrators, and frustrated parents and spectators try to understand the puzzling and bitter notes that Mr. Wiedermeyer slips under the door, the hidden life of the high school comes to light. Readers will be gripped by the suspenseful story, and will find their own lives reflected in these honest, hard-hitting poems.
Reviews:
"A highly satisfying increasingly tense read" - Denver Post
"Writing in conversational free-verse trains of thought, Glenn probes the hopes, fears, conceits, and moods of students, officials, and bystanders, introducing each of the hostages with a series of vignettes that trace the evolution of a particular idea or relationship through four years of school and to the beginning of class that fateful day."
– Kirkus Reviews
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JUMP BALL: A Basketball Season in Poems By Mel Glenn 1997 Lodestar Books Reading level: Young Adult Hardcover: 160 pages 
ISBN-10: 052567554X ISBN-13: 978-0525675549
Meet the Tigers, Tower High School’s basketball team. With Garrett James, the star player, who seems destined for the NBA, the Tigers are on top of the world, bringing the crowds to their feet. In this collection of poems, you’ll get to know Garrett James and the rest of the players, their families, their coach, and girlfriends, fans, and reporters. You’ll come to care about Darnell Joyce, the lovable forward with no place to live; Tyrone Porter and the little brother who worships him; and people like Vonessa Leighton, the team manager with a secret crush on one of the players.
Reviews:
"Jump Ball captures the pulse of the basketball season--on and off the court--in poignant, honest, and well-spoken glimpses into the many personalities who work and play at Tower High School. Teenage crushes, pregnancy, homelessness, and the glamorization of athletes are all examined here. Tower High's championship season is chronicled in fine, easy-to-read vignettes interspersed with broadcast accounts of the games. The insights of the players and adults are cleverly penned. They're sure to interest sports fans or just those desiring a look into human nature. The startling, tragic event that grips the team at the end of the season will keep young people reading to learn the fate of the troubled and terrific Tigers." - School Library Journal
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ISBN-10: 0688164722 ISBN-13: 978-0688164720
When students from urban Tower High School are invited to spend a weekend in Hudson Landing, not all of the residents of the rural town are pleased. The city kids will bring crime and drugs, some say. There’s no place for them in small-town America. Each urban teenager is paired with a rural teen, with interesting and sometimes, comic results. But when beautiful local girl Kristen Clarke is found murdered, townspeople point the finger at Kwame Richards, a black kid from Tower High who danced with Kristen at the “foreign exchange” dance. Readers become fiercely absorbed in this story in poems as they try to figure out who killed Kristen Clarke.
Reviews:
"Glenn's latest… reflects what teens think about and deal with in their everyday lives-relationships with parents, sex, school, the future. The drama isn't in the action or the mystery, but in the feeling behind the words." - Booklist
"A progression of first-person poems in free verse tell the story of how Kwame, a black teen from the city spending a weekend in rural Hudson Landing, is accused of murdering a local white girl. Both teens and adults narrate the poems, which reveal the prejudices simmering beneath the surface of a seemingly sleepy town. Teens will easily relate to the strongly felt emotions behind the words." – Horn Book
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SPLIT IMAGE By Mel Glenn Hardcover - 2000 Paperback - 2002 HarperCollins Publishers Paperback: 160 pages Publisher: HarperTeen (May 28, 2002)
ISBN-10: 0060004819 ISBN-13: 978-0060004811
Laura Li seems perfect in every way--beautiful, kind, smart. At her job in the school library she is smiling and helpful to everyone, and at home she cares for her ailing brother like a dutiful daughter. But after midnight a very different Laura Li secretly sneaks out to wild dance clubs-desperate to escape the pressures exerted by her parents. This riveting story shows what happens when one teenage girl is denied the freedom to determine her own identity.
Reviews:
"Written with raw immediacy, this will touch teens deep down" - ALA Booklist
"A powerful look at perceptions and what lies behind them" - School Library Journal
Awards: |
NOVELS
ONE ORDER TO GO By Mel Glenn Hardcover: 180 pages Publisher: Clarion Books (October 22, 1984)
Nothing is going right for Richie Linder, age seventeen. School is boring, his social life is dismal, and his free time is spent laboring in his father's greasy luncheonette.
Richie wants to quit school and go off to become a foreign correspondent, but how can he tell Sam Linder, his brusque, tyrannical father, of his plans? Ever since he can remember, his father has been ordering him around. And now Sam Linder is determined his son will go to college next fall. Richie promises himself he will stand up to his dad, but each time he tries, he loses his nerve.
Then he meets Lana Olivia Turner, an eccentric redhead with a habit of butting into other people's lives. Through her unorthodox prodding, he begins to gather the courage to stand his own ground. The result is an explosive confrontation between father and son.
BOOKS FOR CHILDREN
PLAY-by-PLAY By Mel Glenn Reading level: Ages 9-12 Hardcover: 126 pages Publisher: Clarion Books (April 21, 1986)
ISBN-10: 0899193927
ISBN-13: 978-0899193922
Jeremy likes to ride his bike and trade comics with his good friend, Lloyd. In school they have lots of fun together, especially when they sit next to each other and joke about the girls. But when it comes to sports, Lloyd seems to forget about friendship, and only cares about winning. Ever worse, he considers Jeremy a less-than-average athlete- and lets him know it.
When a new gym teacher, Mike, introduces soccer at school, Jeremy is skeptical. But his enthusiasm grows with Mike’s encouragement, and Jeremy realizes that size and strength aren’t the ultimate factor in how well you play the game.
SQUEEZE PLAY: A Baseball Story By Mel Glenn Reading level: Ages 9-12 Hardcover: 135 pages Publisher: Clarion Books (April 20, 1989) 
ISBN-10: 0899198597 ISBN-13: 978-0899198590
Jeremy and his sports-crazy best friend Lloyd are about to enter sixth grade. But the new teacher isn’t what anyone expects.
Mr. Shore doesn’t give the usual “if-we-all-work-together-this-will-be-a-fine-year” speech. Instead, he divides the class into squads, and institutes an after-school baseball team that he “advises” everyone to join.
Soon, the students come to dread their after-school workouts. But when Jeremy rebels against the system, and no one backs him up, he gets ostracized, and learns how tough it can be to stand up for what you believe in. Luckily, Jeremy has a new friend, Mr. Janowicz, who helps him to see the situation more clearly… and together, they work to set things right.
Mel is a relaxed and playful speaker, who draws on his many years of teaching experience to keep children (and adults!) of all ages engaged, and entertained.
If you would like to schedule an author visit, you can contact Mel himself, for more information on available dates.
| "It was a wonderful day when you came to visit!" - Samantha, age 15, Queens, NY "I enjoyed your poems and could relate." - Lyndsey, age 15, Queens, NY "Your presentation of the poems was awesome!" - Ryan, age 16, Seattle, WA "I don't read books, but after your visit, I'll read yours." - Stephanie, age 15, Stillwater, OK "Mel Glenn did a fine job of showing the importance of writing and provided a very real version of a successful author. He encouraged students to participate. He tried to include all types of students. He encouraged students to follow their passion. During his presentation, Mr. Glenn encouraged the students to read, believe in themselves, and be passionate about all artistic endeavors. As a counselor, I liked the emphasis Mr. Glenn put on setting personal goals and discovering your talents." - Teacher, Stillwater, OK "Mr. Glenn helped kids see the power of words. His teacher sense helped him to relate well to the kids. They felt comfortable responding to his questions and comments." - Teacher, Delaware |
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Mel Glenn
428 Bedford Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11229
Phone (718) 934-8645
mailto:author114@aol.com
Website http://www.melglenn.com
To return to the state page click HERE 08/14/08 date last edited
