Rhyme Schemer

Kevin’s notebook is a symbol of his fragility, vulnerability, and authentic self. He uses the notebook to write daily poems. He begins the journal at the start of his seventh-grade school year, penning poems for each new school day. He soon loses interest in organizing his thoughts this way and begins writing poems more loosely. The way he titles his poems provides insight into how Kevin is processing his experiences. At the novel’s start, the poems are titled “Day 1,” “Day 2,” “Day 3,” etc. Later on in the novel, he begins to title his poems by the days of the week or with more creative titles. The initial titling implies that Kevin is counting down his days at school or tallying them up. He doesn’t like being at school, where he feels lost and out of place, so writing numbered poems offers him a sense of control. The days-of-the-week poems (which he writes on looseleaf paper) show him gradually accepting each day as it comes. The numbered poems show his more rigid attempts to control his experiences and emotions.

At first, the poems in Kevin’s notebook largely detail his frustrations with his classmates, brothers, parents, and teachers. These poems reveal his hurt, anger, alienation, and profound sense of injustice. These are vulnerable facets of Kevin that he doesn’t know how to express outside the context of the notebook. He is therefore mortified when Robin steals and repurposes the notebook as fodder for his abuse. Robin uses Kevin’s vulnerabilities against him—not unlike how Kevin used Robin’s against him. Kevin feels ashamed when Robin distributes copies of the notebook to his classmates because he fears that his classmates will see the real him and dislike him even more.

When Robin later returns Kevin’s notebook, it is tattered, scratched, and stained. In this scene, Kevin compares the dinged-up notebook to himself. He, too, has scars and wounds, but ultimately, he still has value.