# The Newbery Book Club **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [February 12, 2017, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674 "2017-02-12T19:41:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2017, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/81 "2017-04-20T18:18:49Z")
What’s the worst Newberry winner you have all read? ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2017, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/82 "2017-04-20T18:28:51Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > What’s the worst Newberry winner you have all read? \*y’all, not “you have all” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2017, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/83 "2017-04-20T18:29:27Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > What’s the worst Newberry winner you have all read? I didn’t finish, but the first one, _The Story of Mankind_ (1922), by Hendrik Willem van Loon. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2017, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/84 "2017-04-21T03:33:29Z")
_The One and Only Ivan_ (2013), by Katherine Applegate. Holy mackerel. I essentially just sobbed my way through this book. I have no idea if this would hit everyone the same way, but it is a doozy for me. **Recommendation:** It was worth it for me, but if you hate sad books (I am not the biggest fan), this would not please you. The entire premise is sad. Read it if you like sad. If you hate sad, be warned. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2017, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/85 "2017-04-21T04:57:24Z")
I liked _The One and Only Ivan_ but it certainly didn’t hit me that hard 🙂 I just read a couple of not-too-memorable winners: _Ginger Pye_ by Eleanor Estes and _The Wheel on the School_ by Meindert DeJong. I expected more from Eleanor Estes since I remember enjoying _The Hundred Dresses_ and excerpts from the Moffatt books. As for _The Wheel on the School_, while I do like the fact that it has a strong and enterprising female character, I found it a bit hard to get involved with the children’s interests. Times have really changed with the kids in both books ranging very freely around town and countryside. And I don’t have a problem, personally, with age differences in relationships, but I can see readers today being turned off by the romance between the parents–she’s 17 and he’s 35 when they meet, the children are proud of having the youngest mother, and their uncle Benny, who is 3 years old, 7-8 years younger than the kids, is considered really special to be an uncle at such a young age. I found myself doing the arithmetic for the family–if the mom had her 1st kid when she was 19, she must be 30 when the story is happening, and she has a younger brother who is 3, so 27 years younger than her? Mahaloth, I don’t know about “worst” but _Ginger Pye_ is one of the ones I like least. _Missing May_ is also high on my least liked list. And like jsgoddess I couldn’t finish \*The Story of Mankind. \* ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2017, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/86 "2017-04-21T05:32:31Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > It’s definitely that. I finally finished it today. But I never really connected to it the way I expected to. > > I think the narrator is the biggest problem. She knows things she shouldn’t and doesn’t know things she should and the combination just irritated me. > > **Recommendation:** I would recommend it as a good, solid novel that I didn’t find as deeply moving (I was expecting devastating) as I expected. Aha–this may be on reason why I’m not a big fan of _Roll of Thunder_. Yes, the narrative voice does get in the way. Supposedly it’s based on stories the author heard from her family growing up and sometimes it feels inconsistent, like she’s retelling them as an adult rather than fully getting into the child narrator Cassie’s skin. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2017, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/87 "2017-04-21T12:56:57Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > What’s the worst Newberry winner you have all read? After reading them all, I’d say **Crispin: Cross of Lead** , by Avi. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/88 "2017-04-29T21:38:31Z")
_Maniac Magee_ (1991), by Jerry Spinelli. It’s an odd book. I don’t think it works as a mishmash of realism and mythology. I found the tone too uneven. There’s a really good book in there, but I think it’s getting in its own way. **Recommendation** : This one is hard. In a way, I’d say read it because it tries for something big and the attempt is more than some books can claim. In another, I’d say this is much less accomplished than some of the other winners. I’ll come down on the side of “Read it, see what you think.” ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/89 "2017-04-29T22:27:27Z")
I’m rereading some of the winners. Roller Skates, by Ruth Sawyer, was one of my favorites. I wore out the copy I bought from the Scholastic Book Club as a kid, and bought another one a few years later. (Not the same cover, sadly.) I’m surprised I don’t hear more people praising this book; it’s about a rebellious girl who lucks into a year of freedom from her parents in the 1890’s when they go to Europe and leave her behind with one of her school’s teachers. She zooms around New York City on roller skates as a free range kid and has a mostly wonderful time. Mostly. This is also one of the saddest books I’ve ever read in parts. “Death by Newbery” strikes hard, and I cried when I read it which I almost never did. I thoroughly recommend this book. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/90 "2017-04-29T22:56:23Z")
jsgoddess, you’re not the only reader who’s uncomfortable with the mythological aspect of _Maniac Magee_. I think the reason it didn’t bother me was that I took it with a big grain of salt or as not meaning much more than “local legend”. I’ve read several charming winners in the last week, including _A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl’s Journal_ and _A Visit to William Blake’s Inn_, both of which I wish I’d known about earlier so I could have shared them with my kids when they were the right age. My daughter liked Scholastic’s _Dear America_ historical series and _A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl’s Journal_ is like a superior version. _A Visit to William Blake’s Inn_ would have been a wonderful read-aloud bedtime book for my kids–we had several poetry collections that they liked and I was a bit sad to think of how much they would have enjoyed the whimsy and humor of this one. Another charming book is _Adam of the Road_, which I’ve had sitting on my shelf for years and years thinking I’d read it already–I realized that I had it mixed up with another medieval Newbery with a similar cover, _A Door in the Wall_. If you like historical fiction without much blood and gore or extreme fear then you may like this one–it’s not particularly exciting or compelling but it has a likeable protagonist and a cute spaniel. I started reading a very early winner, _Tales from Silver Lands_ but quit around 1/4 of the way through. This one is for completists or for people who really enjoy folk / fairy tales from around the world. It’s available online: [http://202.119.108.73:8079/pdf/1925-f-finger-talesftsl.pdf](http://202.119.108.73:8079/pdf/1925-f-finger-talesftsl.pdf) And here’s a blog with lots of interesting reviews of Newbery medal and honor books. [http://www.uta.edu/english/tim/lection/newbery.html](http://www.uta.edu/english/tim/lection/newbery.html) I’ve been enjoying these; let me know what you think. The author is a professor at U of Texas-Austin but he’s not obscure or pretentious or professorial at all (he was a visiting prof in the department where I went to grad school and I didn’t get to know him but friends told me he was cool). Caution, a number of them contain spoilers. The one on _Tales from Silver Lands_ was what led me to the site. His take on the cover of the Scholastic edition is laugh-out-loud hilarious: [http://www.uta.edu/english/tim/lection/131210.html](http://www.uta.edu/english/tim/lection/131210.html) ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/91 "2017-04-29T22:58:19Z")
_Last Stop on Market Street_ (2016), by Matt de la Peña. So wow, that was short. Not what I was expecting. It’s a nice story, and I loved the illustrations. So short I hardly had a chance to get into it, though. **Recommendation** : This will take you approximately two minutes to read. I spent longer writing this review! ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/92 "2017-04-30T02:11:06Z")
I’m recovering from a recent operation and have been reading a lot of children’s/YA novels, some Newbery winners and some not. This included a stack of books that E.L. Konigsburg has written since my own childhood. > [@jsgoddess](#): > > _The View from Saturday_ (1997), by E.L. Konigsburg. I had read this one before, but didn’t remember it. Now I know why. It’s really not very interesting. Granted, I didn’t read this one as a kid the way I did Mixed Up Files, but still. It’s boring. No one is interesting except perhaps one adult character who shows some flashes of something human. The kids are all rather punchable. I didn’t think this book was _awful_, and I probably would have liked it better had I read it as a kid, but I agree that it really was not very good. The author’s note indicated that it was basically some originally unrelated short stories with the trivia competition as a framing device, which may explain why it didn’t really come together as a novel. I can’t explain how it managed to win the Newbery, though. I thought Konigsburg’s _The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place_ (2004) and sort-of sequel but mostly stand-alone _The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World_ (2007) were both much better. I didn’t think either one was _fantastic_ or a must-read for adults, but a kid who liked _From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler_ would probably find them enjoyable. _The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World_, like _From the Mixed-Up Files_, involves two kids trying to solve a mystery about a piece of art connected to an eccentric elderly woman, but the plot and characters are different enough that it doesn’t feel like a total rehash of Konigsburg’s best-known book. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/93 "2017-04-30T12:16:30Z")
gkster, thanks for the link to the Newbery reviews. What I’ve read so far has been very interesting. It also suggested another idea about Roller Skates: the theme of power. The heroine’s freedom increases her power, which is very important to her–which is why, when she discovers her limits, it’s so devastating, to her and the reader. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/94 "2017-05-09T15:48:49Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Just finished _The Crossover_ (2015), by Kwame Alexander. Very well done, though slam-style poetry is not something I tend to love. The characters are good, the story compelling, and the playfulness of the poetry is fun. > > **Recommendation** : Definitely worth reading, though not one of my very top tier Newbery winners. I read it all on Sunday. Well-written and fast-paced, and it makes me realize what a genre “Newbery-bait” is. Early in the book you meet the protagonist’s twin brother and middle-aged dad, and the only question once you meet these characters is Which is gonna die by the end of the book? Even that question gets answered pretty soon. I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure how much I respect the plot. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/95 "2017-05-09T15:51:27Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure how much I respect the plot. I hear what you’re saying, but isn’t it possible you are looking at it backwards? You know it won the Newbery, so you assume you know what the book will be like. Would you have had the same disdain if you were reading it and it hadn’t won? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/96 "2017-05-09T16:37:44Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I hear what you’re saying, but isn’t it possible you are looking at it backwards? You know it won the Newbery, so you assume you know what the book will be like. Would you have had the same disdain if you were reading it and it hadn’t won? Hmm, fair point. But just like some movies seem to be Oscar-Bait, I think this book might have been angling for award season. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/97 "2017-05-09T16:42:07Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Hmm, fair point. But just like some movies seem to be Oscar-Bait, I think this book might have been angling for award season. If we were truly dedicated, we would keep lists of Newbery bait books and see if they win. I am not truly dedicated. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/98 "2017-05-14T15:09:38Z")
_Smoky the Cowhorse_ (1927), by Will James. Written in a folksy style that starts out fairly charming and wore on me after a while. I ended up giving up on it and, after looking at various reviews on goodreads, it looks like I bailed shortly before some pretty racist stuff starts up, so I’m not regretful about my decision. **Recommendation:** Consider reading the [first chapter or so](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0700111h.html) to have a good sense of the style. It’s quite different from the other Newbery winners I’ve read. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/99 "2017-05-19T05:57:59Z")
jsgoddess, thanks for the link–I have to admit that the folksy style really set my teeth on edge after a couple of pages. On the other hand, the name “Smoky” reminded me of one of my favorite books, from the Golden Age of British mysteries, Josephine Tey’s Brat Farrar: [https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/tey/josephine/brat\_farrar/index.html](https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/tey/josephine/brat_farrar/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674/100 "2017-05-19T12:34:50Z")
> [@gkster](#): > > jsgoddess, thanks for the link–I have to admit that the folksy style really set my teeth on edge after a couple of pages. > > On the other hand, the name “Smoky” reminded me of one of my favorite books, from the Golden Age of British mysteries, Josephine Tey’s Brat Farrar: [https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/tey/josephine/brat\_farrar/index.html](https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/tey/josephine/brat_farrar/index.html) I LOVE that book. _The Door in the Wall_ (1950), by Marguerite de Angeli. Medieval setting about a boy who contracts polio or something like it while his parents are away and who then has other Things Happen. It’s written in a faux olde fashioned style that didn’t do much for me, though it wasn’t as precious as Smoky. **Recommendation:** Pretty forgettable. Skip unless you’re a completist. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-newbery-book-club/779674.md?page=6)