I just finished Dicey’s Song and couldn’t put it down. While Bridge to Terabithia is still my all-time favorite, I understand why some of the readers on the all-time best Newbery thread named it as theirs. It’s the best book I’ve read since starting out to read all of the winners, and I’m sorry that I never came across it before. A top-tier and truly deserving winner.
Ok, this is a hot topic for me, and I’ll be glad to reread and re-review books I’ve read as a child, as well as new (to me) books.
Just for fun, and to start out, I’ll list the ones I recall reading when I carried a composition notebook on a yellow bus:
1994: The Giver by Lois Lowry(Houghton)***
1990: Number the Stars by Lois Lowry (Houghton)
1987: The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman (Greenwillow)
1986: Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan (Harper)
1985: The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley (Greenwillow)
1984: Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary (Morrow)
1983: Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voigt (Atheneum)
1982: A Visit to William Blake’s Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers by Nancy Willard (Harcourt) (maybe didn’t read it in jr high, but in bits and pieces over the years)
1981: Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson (Crowell)
1979: The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (Dutton)
1978: Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (Crowell)
1977: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor (Dial)
1976: The Grey King by Susan Cooper (McElderry/Atheneum)
1972: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien (Atheneum)***
1971: Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars (Viking)
1970: Sounder by William H. Armstrong (Harper)
1969: The High King by Lloyd Alexander (Holt)***
1968: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg (Atheneum)
1963: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (Farrar)***
1961: Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell (Houghton)
1960: Onion John by Joseph Krumgold (Crowell)
1959: The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare (Houghton)***
1958: Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith (Crowell)
1952: Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes (Harcourt)
1950: The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli (Doubleday)***
1946: Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski (Lippincott)***
Asterisks by some of my favorites. I think I made it a point to read Newbery Award winners, for whatever reason, and I’m sure I read more of them than I listed here. I also enjoyed a lot more classics that predated these.
Anywho, in keeping with the topic, I’d be glad to reread and discuss any of these, or I can give my unadulterated (ha!) impressions of the books after many
years. There are 5 or so books above, however, that I’ve recently re-read, because I refuse to ignore a delightful piece of literature simply because it has been recommended for younger folk. 
Hmm. I doubt it’s “midwestern humor” that’s the issue (says the guy who grew up in the Midwest and liked Prairie Home Companion just fine)–in any case, I don’t think of Pittsburgh as the Midwest. That being said, the folks who chose the Newbery probably did find it very funny, so it’s quite possible we’re missing something. (Or not)
Regarding your spoiler for Bud, Not Buddy:
You’re absolutely right about Bud’s ability to read others accurately and to come across as polite and interesting. My daughter actually had/has a certain amount of that, which has had the effect of people just wanting to do things for her–so I see that up close and personal! Anyway, that quality helps explain why people go out of their way to help him–the librarian, the guy on the road outside Lansing, the people in Hooverville–but taking in a kid who just shows up on your doorstep seems a little beyond that. Not arguing with you :), just that it didn’t quite work for me even so. Did make for a nice ending though!
Was it Pittsburgh? Oops. Obviously didn’t much stick with me :).
Just started Kira-Kira, by Cynthia Kadohata.
I’ve started Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry. I have a feeling I’m going to need to batten down the hatches.
Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry is a book that I read only as an adult and found to be quite sad and scary.
Just finished Dead End in Norvelt and was underwhelmed like others here–it wasn’t bad but I do agree with Ulf the Unwashed’s assessment, “The author seems in particular to be reaching too hard for quirk in his characters at the expense of depth”.
About the whole Midwestern issue, I’ve heard Western New York and Pennsylvania characterized as more Midwestern than East Coast.
I also finished The Girl Who Drank the Moon a few days ago. Somehow I find myself admiring it and judging that it’s very good without really liking it that much, which is a little surprising to me since its genre, high fantasy, is one of my favorites. I liked the supporting characters (Antain and Ethyne) much more than the title character, who somehow in comparison didn’t seem fully realized enough.
Also I’m surprised that there were only 2 illustrations, the cover and the title page–if ever a book cried out for pictures it’s this one. Of course the writing beautifully describes many of the characters and scenes but if I were the author I would have asked for an illustrator to do more.
Dendarii Dame, how are you liking Kira-Kira? I saw my copy last week and was thinking that it’s time for a re-read. Interesting factoid: while there are 2 Newbery medal winners by Asian American writers in this century (Kadohata in 2005 and Linda Sue Park’s A Single Shard in 2003), the earliest Asian American Newbery medalist was Dhan Gopal Mukerji with Gay Neck, The Story of a Pigeon in 1928.
I finished Kira-Kira last night. It’s the sort of book that’s very well-written and would be educational for a child. It feels true, but it’s just so gloomy that (through no fault of the author’s) I couldn’t enjoy it.
Next up: Criss Cross, by Lynn Rae Perkins.
Thanks for this recommendation! I thoroughly enjoyed the audio book.
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.
Glad you did. It was a great performance by James Avery.
A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl’s Journal, 1830-32 (1980), by Joan W. Blos. A slow, gentle exploration of about a year and a half in the life of an early teen. I’m a fan of epistolary novels, so that part works for me. The writing style feels a little too variable. I didn’t feel like it was locked-in on a specific personality and time. The main character is perhaps a bit of a bore.
Recommendation: This one only takes a couple of hours, so if you like historical fiction at all, I’d say read it.
Lincoln: A Photobiography (1988), by Russell Freedman. I’m not someone who tends to read biography on purpose, though I do love history. This does a good job, I thought, in being readable without being slight, and giving a decent sense of Lincoln as a person. This isn’t something I would have read without this book club, but I would praise it as a strong example of writing for younger readers that is still smart and feels complete, not dumbed down.
Recommendation: I think it’s good. I still don’t know that I recommend it, just because it’s not really something I would generally read for fun (or profit!).
Island of the Blue Dolphins (1961), by Scott O’Dell. The combination of the very matter-of-fact voice for Karana and the huge events made this very effective for me. Then the afterword came, and it was like a kick in the gut.
Learning it was basically true, and that her people were all apparently dead and she struggled to communicate with anyone depressed the hell out of me.
Recommendation: In many ways, I’m betting this book is more effective for an adult than for a younger person. I found it strong while reading it and devastating upon reflection.
Just started Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins.
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.
Recommendation: I didn’t feel like it was doing anything really worth reading about, so I’m going to slap a “Not unless you’re a completist” on this one. I just don’t think it’s even interesting as a failure.
Just finished Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins. Not horrible, but not interesting, either. Very obvious plot, nothing very interesting happens, and I’d say it’s only for completists.
One of the Newbery Honor books that year was Princess Academy, by Shannon Hale, which is a much better book. (Why do I have a sneaking suspicion if it had been named anything without “Princess” in the title, it would have won?) I haven’t read the other Honor books that year, so I can’t judge them.
I’ve now read all of the Newbery Award winners. I’ll be re-reading some of the ones I’ve enjoyed over the years now.
It’s funny how one book will click with one reader and fail for the next. I just checked on Goodreads and I rated Princess Academy 3 stars and Criss Cross 5.
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.