What’s the worst Newberry winner you have all read?
*y’all, not “you have all”
I didn’t finish, but the first one, The Story of Mankind (1922), by Hendrik Willem van Loon.
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.
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. *
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.
After reading them all, I’d say Crispin: Cross of Lead, by Avi.
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.”
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.
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
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
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
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If we were truly dedicated, we would keep lists of Newbery bait books and see if they win.
I am not truly dedicated.
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 to have a good sense of the style. It’s quite different from the other Newbery winners I’ve read.
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
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.