I just finished The Westing Game, but I’m so confused by it that I suspect I’ll want to get into a back and forth; rather than hijacking this thread with lots of my questions, I started a new one.
I’m reading The Girl Who Drank the Moon to my 8yo as her bedtime book. It’ll probably take us a couple months to finish, since we only read 5-20 minutes a night depending on the night; I’ll let y’all know what I think. So far it feels like bog-standard fantasy to me, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices (1989), by Paul Fleischman.
This is the first Newbery-winning poetry collection I’ve read. It’s pretty charming, with wit and a couple of laugh out loud lines. But only one of the poems really takes advantage of the “two voices” conceit in a memorable way. I liked very much that it was focused on that “unpoetic” topic of insects. The poems, though, felt slight. Not bad in the least, but wispy. ETA: I forgot one that struck me as deeper and more profound.
Recommendation: Well, I love poetry, and this is almost certainly the shortest book on the list (it took me about 20 minutes to read, even though I was doing it aloud) so I’m going to recommend everyone read it. I don’t think there’s anything there to hate, and it’s accessible and has some whimsy without being doggerel.
I liked Joyful Noise too, and I think another Newbery poetry collection, Nancy Willard’s A Visit to William Blake’s Inn, is even better. It’s one of the few Newbery books I own. Be sure to read the introduction.
I’m struggling with what to say about this book. I think it’s something some kids might like quite a bit. It beat out Charlotte’s Web for the Newbery. It made me laugh at times and made me yawn at others.
Recommendation: I can’t see really recommending this one to an adult reader. It’s not terrible. But it’s strangely empty. There is some humor in the kids’ doings, and in the dog’s doings, and the writing is fine. But the whole thing added up to something rather flat for this adult. Completists only, for the most part.
I am actually only halfway, but I have a huge recommendation for people reading this book.
**Get the audiobook read by James Avery. Wow. **
James Avery absolutely has made this book a great book for me. He really did a great job recording it. He sells the earnest-sounding voice of the “Bud” character, who is narrating the entire book. He really did just an amazing job. I think it’s my favorite thing from James Avery, actually. He was a great actor and he delivered big time.
Worth it, if only to hear the great performance by James Avery. The book is really good as well.
Even though he is an adult, he just does a great job voicing Bud. Honestly, you could have convinced me he memorized the book and was reciting it. It transported me.
Just finished Moon over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool. Not bad. Feels a lot like Addie Pray (which was filmed as Paper Moon.) 1930’s setting in Kansas, with flashbacks to the same area during WWI. The main character often speaks of “universals”, things and people she’s seen all over the country. We call them tropes, and there are lots of them in this book. Various characters have “dead meat” written all over them, and sure enough, that’s what happens.
Just put The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate on reserve.
I just read Strawberry Girl. Gah! The accent! I hate when authors spell out accents. When it started I was dismayed, but it was much better and more readable than I thought initially. It felt like Lenski painted herself into a bit of a corner with the relationships, so the ending felt odd to me.
Recommendation: It’s short, and as Green Bean says, it’s showing a different side of Florida.
As mentioned earlier, I’m reading The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle to my students. I’d forgotten how horrific the violence becomes: this week, I’ve read two scenes where I had to edit out gore, and even then one student told me it made his stomach hurt to listen to it.
The kids are totally enthralled, though, and the merest suggestion I put it away is met with a chorus of protests.
Around ten years ago I took a good look at the list, and was surprised to see that though I was in my 50s I’d only read seven of them. (There were around 85 at the time.) So I set out to read the lot of them. It took a couple of years, as I was reading a lot of other books, too, but I finally finished reading them - including rereads of the seven. Since then I’ve read a few, though not all, of the new ones.
I highly recommend both Dicey’s Song (Cynthia Voigt, 1983) and When You Reach Me (Rebecca Stead, 2010). When I saw that Dicey was the second book in a series I decided to read the prequel first – and I liked the two of them so much that I went on to read three of the other books in the series.
Moon Over Manifest (Clare Vanderpool, 2011) was also excellent.
I picked Dicey’s Song as my favorite in the “name your favorite Newbery winner” thread. Though if The Runner had been an option, I would have picked that. That book is a kick in the gut.
Slightly off-topic, I’d also like to rcommend Time of Trial (Hester Burton) and Tamar (Mal Peet), recipients of the Carnegie Medal, the British equivalent to the Newbery.
It’s a really good book. Again, made a lot better by James Avery’s incredible audio recording. Still, it works very well on its own and is a nice book.
I was pleasantly surprised and satisfied with the ending, which I won’t spoil here. I kind of figured, as an adult reader, that I knew what to expect. I didn’t and it was a nice little way to wrap things up.
Note: Even liking it, it is nowhere near as good as The Westing Game or The Giver. Not in the same league at all.
