I know for sure I’ve read 10, but I also know several more that I can’t recall reading where in my house growing up.
I don’t know I can pick one. The Giver is awesome, as an adult I enjoyed Holes, and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was fun (I want to live in a museum!).
This list did give me about 100 books to buy for home though.
Edward Eager wrote charming childrens fantasy. Good for kids of most ages.
Parents take note!
My kids and I noticed this as well. We joked that the ultimate Newberry book would be about a handicapped librarian whose dog is killed by racists.
The “Newberry-bait” was the reason I didn’t care for the 2010 winner “When You Reach Me”. The book reads like the author took a spreadsheet of topics that won in previous years, assembled the various pieces, and slapped a mild sci-fi veneer to sucker someone reading the back cover into reading it.
Let’s see…
Tween girl coming of age story? Check
Girl loves reading, complete with shout-outs to an earlier Newberry winner? Check
Subplot with single mom’s struggles with sexism? Check
“Racism is bad, mm-kay?” subplot? Check
Climax with death of a character? Check
Not to mention the climactic Twilight Zone-ish twist was obvious about 1/3 of the way into the book. Only thing missing was a dead pet.
Deform yourself? Why didn’t you say so?! They should call you “Rilchiam Deformed”!
I quit reading these somewhere in the late 80s/early 90s. Of the ones I read, The High King is great, so is The Witch of Blackbird Pond, so is The Westing Game. I really liked a handful of the others, too, but those are the three where I still have my childhood copies.
When I first read them when I was ten, I would have challenged you to a duel for saying that…but when I reread them even a couple of years later, I felt exactly the same way. Will never *does *anything, he never has to fight or change or grow in order to get any of the Signs; he just shows up in the right place at the right time, and there they are.
A Wrinkle in Time is another one that I loved when I was about ten but went off just a few years later. It’s got a coy messagey-ness that made me want to make juvenile barfing noises, and I remember thinking that Charles Wallace needed a good kick up the hole, although I don’t remember exactly why. The only Madeleine L’Engle that I still liked after I hit about fifteen is A Swiftly Tilting Planet.
I remember reading some of these and thinking that they were the kind of books that an adult who had never known any kids would pick for kids, rather than the kind of book any kid would ever pick. Up a Road Slowly, for example. Some of them were worthy *and *good, like Island of the Blue Dolphins, but others…sheesh.
I was going to vote for The Grey King but agree that it’s a little unfair to count series books, as one can’t really disregard the rest of the series, so I will be very happy to vote for The Hero and the Crown.
He does do some stuff.
I just reread them and I still liked them. Greenwitch stuck with me more than the Grey King.
I, Juan de Pareja is one of my favorite Newbery winners. I’ve always been a historical fiction fan and in this one I love the warmth of the characters and their relationships.
LOL, this is exactly my objection to The Dark is Rising series. Why is Will magic? Just because he’s the seventh son of a seventh son, does a couple of tasks and that’s it?! And in contrast other value / belief systems like Christianity are so misguided and foolish?
Anyone care to explain what it is about The Westing Game that people love? I thought that it was cute, and Turtle was fun, but I couldn’t really get into it.
I’ve read 47 of the Newbery winners–I teach Children’s Lit on the college level, but the reason I teach it is that I love, adore, live for reading children’s books and even before teaching Children’s Lit I had already read 16 of the winners.
Probably my current favorite is Bridge to Terabithia. Years ago when I was a teenager I loved Johnny Tremain and A Wrinkle in Time but I’m not as big a fan of them any more. Out of the Dust is a relatively recent one that I think is excellent, as well as The Graveyard Book. And a nod to a couple which are uneven but have their high points, Walk Two Moons (a real tearjerker in spots) and And Now Miguel.
There are a couple of things that come together to make me like it so much. First, it has a good combination of humor and genuine emotion. It’s funny, but not so slapstick that the characters don’t seem real, or that their problems don’t seem genuine.
Second, it hits a perfect zone of layers of complexity, where a younger reader can follow the basic gist, and a somewhat older reader picks up even more clues and details about the mystery. I remember coming back to it at different ages and getting more each time.
And third, as I kid, I really liked that it was obviously a book written for kids, but it assumed that kids were perfectly capable of understanding the storylines that were more about the adults. I don’t know if that would have struck me so much had I read this book for the first time as an adult, but it really made an impression on me that the author assumed that kids could understand fairly serious things.
I haven’t reread them in a long time, so my memory isn’t going to be as fresh as yours. But if you compare them to the Chronicles of Prydain (since those are also on the list)… Taran gets into his adventures because he chooses to - in other words, because of who he is as a person; he’s very specifically and explicitly *not *destined for them by birth. He has to earn his way to every step. Will gets into his because he’s the seventh son of a seventh son, end of story - nothing to do with choice, or with who he is as a person. Taran’s constantly having to figure out solutions to the problems he runs into, find new reserves of courage or good sense or resourcefulness or self-sacrifice, grow to meet the situation’s demands; half the time Merriman points Will straight to the Sign, and the other half he just needs to have basic doggedness, remember the rules of the magic and not do anything seriously dumb. Taran grows and changes enormously over the course of the five books, there’s huge character development; Will is, basically, always the same, only with more knowledge of how the magic works.
Just for an example - there’s a moment I remember (I may be getting the details wrong) where Will and Merriman are inside some hall, and the Dark imitates Will’s mother’s voice calling him from outside. Merriman tells him that if he opens the door, the Dark will kill him. Will rushes over to open it anyway. At the last minute, he whacks his arm off one of the Signs on his belt and it burns him, and the burn shocks him into realising that isn’t his mother. It’s not his own inner resources, his own choices, that save the day: it’s something external that’s halfway between deus ex machina and pure chance.
I think I’d probably still like the books now - I remember then being well written and having some lovely eerie world-building and atmosphere. But the lack of an active protagonist with real character development really weakens them for me.
Thanks for starting this thread. It’s giving me warm fuzzies of being a kid and allowing me to revisit some of my favorites. I read The Westing Game last night (for the first time) and thought meh. I really don’t think it was Newbery material. Think I will read Johnny Tremain next.
gkster:
It’s a brilliant book that benefits from re-reading, because you pick up new pieces that you realize you missed with every re-read. This book is not so much written as woven from character threads, into a beautiful tapestry.
The Grey King got me via the Welsh setting, the vague creepiness of the whole thing, and then, you know. The Newbery Bait part.
the goddamned dog dies
I loved Silver on the Tree also but really just the first half with the drowned lands; the resolution is kinda meh, and I always thought the ending for the regular humans was so unjust.
Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson (1945), a charming book about the animals on a rural American estate, although I actually prefer his Captain Kidd’s Cat, a favorite of my childhood, which should’ve won in 1956.
You and I have similar tastes. Wrinkle in Time makes me wrinkle my nose. But I go back to Claudia running away to the Met with some frequency. Frankly, what intelligent adventurous, bookworm wouldn’t prefer Claudia to Meg?
I remember liking The Westing Game, but being thrilled by another of Raskin’s books “The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel” which I picked up at a second hand bookstore a few years ago and am still delighted by.
Johnny Tremain and Thimble Summer waiting to be picked up at the library…
Dendarii Dame, you said in your original post that you hadn’t read the 2003, 2005-7 winners? FWIW Here are my comments.
2007: The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron: nice, sweet, not bad, but not really in the same league as other winners.
2006: Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins: My daughter read it in middle school and loved it. I liked it well enough and can see why it won; while it’s low-key, it’s funny, reflective and realistic, there’s no forced happily ever after ending. It also features a wonderful definition of the concept “satori.”
2005: Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata: racism and a kid with cancer, sounds like award-bait, but my feeling was that the author pulled it off without it looking contrived. Award-worthy.
2003: Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi: I enjoy historical fiction and so was predisposed to like this, but several things about it including a major plot point struck me as inauthentic and rubbed me the wrong way. It reminded me of one of those video games set in a pseudo-medieval world.
Yes, thanks for starting the thread!
Ulf the Unwashed, great points. You remind me of why I enjoyed Wrinkle in Time as a kid–it made me feel better about being nerdy, different and wearing glasses. Yes, Many Waters was a book that just didn’t work. And I’m biased in favor of Madeleine L’Engle–I attended a writing seminar with her 25 years ago and she’s smart, kind and generous. She chuckled about Wrinkle being attacked by the Christian Right as “New Age” and pagan; for those who care to read more about her, here’s an interview: A Conversation With Madeleine L'Engle
I read Story of the Andes, curious to know how it could have edged out Charlotte’s Web and found it readable enough–but yes, the reason it won had to be “We need a book with an international background.” Which BTW is a big theme in the early winners like Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze
Thanks for the inside dope on the ending of The Giver, now I feel better at not being able to figure it out 
LOL, great analysis! I have to agree that When You Reach Me really overstrained my credulity–if the time-travelling character was capable of all that he did, surely there must have been an easier and more effective way for him to prevent the accident?
Nice! Enjoy, you have a treat waiting for you! I have to wonder whether E.B. White had read Thimble Summer or whether a girl and her beloved prize pig at a fair was a much bigger part of the popular consciousness.
Whoa, Bless the Beasts and the Children was a children’s book? That… is a very heavy book. I’m almost positive it was shelved in the adult section in my home town library when I was a kid.
Anyone ever seen the movie?
Dendarii Dame, you said in your original post that you hadn’t read the 2003, 2005-7 winners? FWIW Here are my comments.
2007: The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron: nice, sweet, not bad, but not really in the same league as other winners.
2006: Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins: My daughter read it in middle school and loved it. I liked it well enough and can see why it won; while it’s low-key, it’s funny, reflective and realistic, there’s no forced happily ever after ending. It also features a wonderful definition of the concept “satori.”
2005: Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata: racism and a kid with cancer, sounds like award-bait, but my feeling was that the author pulled it off without it looking contrived. Award-worthy.
2003: Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi: I enjoy historical fiction and so was predisposed to like this, but several things about it including a major plot point struck me as inauthentic and rubbed me the wrong way. It reminded me of one of those video games set in a pseudo-medieval world.
Yes, thanks for starting the thread!
Thanks to all the commenters. In the 1990’s I decided to read every one of the Newbery Award Winners that I hadn’t read as a kid. Some of them were tougher to get through than others (I’m looking at you, The Dark Frigate, although it did have a great battle at sea scene), but the one that stopped me cold was Crispin: The Cross of Lead. Just could not get past chapter two. After that, I only read Newbery books if they were ones I would’ve read without the award.
And I couldn’t stand When You Reach Me either, for the reasons listed.
Whoops, sorry, I edited out the quotes, gkster.
I didn’t think The Cross of Lead was that bad, but it wasn’t a superstar either. (I think I have it three stars on Goodreads.)