You people who don’t like the Westing Game should be evaluated for psychiatric help.
OK, it’s not that amazing, but still! It’s a lot of fun. I had the privilege to read it with a group of advanced middle school readers and each kid played a part, reading the dialogue for their character.
You can see how that would make it awesome.
The Midwife’s Apprentice (1996), by Karen Cushman. It’s rather a bit of fluff, but enjoyable, quick-reading fluff. Cushman doesn’t try to make the medieval setting or the state of medicaid knowledge at the time glamorous in the slightest. It felt a little short.
Recommendation: One of the easier reads on the list, I think, so easy to recommend.
I just read* Inside Out & Back Again* by Thanhha Lai, one of the Honor books from 2012, the year that Dead End in Norvelt won. And for all of us here who were underwhelmed by Dead End in Norvelt, take a look at Inside Out & Back Again and see if you agree with me that it was robbed. It’s a verse novel, so a quick read. My feeling about it is that the plot, characters, language and evocation of its settings are outstanding.
Here’s a sample:
https://www.harpercollins.com/web-sampler/9780062069726
And for those of us who weren’t big fans of The Girl who Drank the Moon, a review that reflects on the book’s strengths and weaknesses: http://www.uta.edu/english/tim/lection/170131.html
I’ll have to check out Inside Out & Back Again, having hated Norvelt.
As for that review–yikes. Harsh. I don’t have unmitigated praise for the book, but I clearly liked it better than that reviewer. A bit of cutting of the ruminations in it would have turned it into a great book, IMO: there’s a lot to love about it, including some of the most evocative magic I’ve seen in a children’s book.
have been a student or teacher all my life. when in college, took curse everybody referred to as “kiddie lit” on going project was developing a 3x5 card file on EVERY Newbery and Caldecott award winning book. one i’m sure i would enjoy reading now would be From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler unappreciated/spoiled & adventurous girl (tween) and her younger brother (who has some “money”) decide to run away… from burbs to NYC… and end up hiding out in the metropolitan art museum.
This afternoon I looked at our library’s book sale cart, where they get rid of books that haven’t been borrowed for a while, and was surprised to see a book with a Newbery Medal sticker–but guess what, it was Avi’s Crispin and the Cross of Lead, mentioned upthread as possibly the worst of the modern medalists.
Missing May (1993), by Cynthia Rylant. This one was very weepy for me. Beautifully written, quite funny at times, and quietly heartbreaking, but I wasn’t as hurt as I was by The One and Only Ivan.
Recommendation: It’s sad, but sad within normal parameters. And it’s short. I recommend it.
I just finished The Crossover and probably the way to look at it is as more character-driven than plot-driven.
About the mom, if I were her I would have
marched the dad off to the doctor immediately, the moment he started having symptoms.
With you on both counts.
Sounder (1970), by William H Armstrong. Black sharecroppers and a Newbery award winning book named after a dog. You know it’s going to be tragic. It is. But it feels like it went in directions I wasn’t expecting. I’ll admit to being tired of crying while reading. I’m glad it’s short. The author chose not to give anyone names except the dog, which works really well rhetorically but is slightly irritating readorically.
Recommendation: Yeah, adults can get something from this despite knowing you’re in for a rough ride.
Yes, it’s not an easy read. I think the choice to leave the characters unnamed is almost a claim that the author has captured something that goes beyond individual character into universality. That’s not where I would be comfortable placing myself if I were writing about another race. Huh. Or my own.
I just finished Shadow of a Bull by Maia Wojciechowska (1964). If you like Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon and don’t have a problem with the animal cruelty issues of bullfighting, then you may be able to handle this book. The blurb says “Ernest Hemingway . . . once thought that Maia Wojciechowska knew more about bullfighting than any woman. Certainly she has studied the subject, in books and in the arena, and once, she even fought a bull.”
The book has strong description and characterization but many readers will be turned off by the fact that the book portrays bullfighting positively. It’s one of the many early Newbery winners with an international background.
I just finished The Hero and the Crown by Robin Mckinley, 1985. I’d never heard of it before the “All-Time Best Newbery Medal Book, In Your Opinion” thread so thought it was definitely worth a look.
The opening was tough going for me–I almost gave up, partly out of irritation with the author’s not explaining a number of facts about the fantasy universe. To give just one example, the heroine, Arien, keeps feeding herself and her horse “mik bars”, whatever these are. I mean, when in Lord of the Rings they eat lembas/waybread it’s described and explained. Maybe there was a description that I missed, but I don’t think so. Things like this had me so annoyed that at first I just kept asking, how could this have won the Newbery Medal?
However I stuck with it and I’m glad I did–it improved and by the end I did agree with the judges. For those who like sword and sorcery with a strong female protagonist it’s a must-read.
BTW it’s the highest rated Newbery winner on goodreads.com as far as I can see–a 4.21 compared to 4.13 for Charlotte’s Web, 4.13 for Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, 4.03 for A Wrinkle in Time, 4.04 for The Westing Game, 4.0 for The Tale of Despereaux, 3.98 for Bridge to Terabithia, 3.94 for Dicey’s Song, just to mention a few. If anyone spots a higher rated Newbery I’d be interested–not that those ratings mean too much anyway, but I was just a bit surprised at its popularity.
For those of you wondering earlier about how Dead End in Norvelt won, I mentioned upthread that I thought that one of the Honor books from that year, Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhha Lai, was robbed. I also read the other Honor book from that year, Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin, which IMHO is also better than Norvelt–better paced, more focused, more emotionally involving.
I see three rated higher (The High King, Last Stop on Market Street, The One and Only Ivan) and one tie (The Crossover).
(I have all of the books on a shelf, so it’s easy to sort by rating.)
I may have to give this one a try after all, then. I’d intended to read it after seeing it mentioned in the other thread, but figured I’d start with McKinley’s The Blue Sword (a Newberry Honor winner) since The Hero and the Crown is a prequel to that. However, I found The Blue Sword to be something of a slog. It wasn’t completely awful, but it was badly paced and McKinley repeatedly wasted time on things that weren’t important and largely skipped over things that were.
I finished Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham a few days ago. I liked it well enough–I’m a fan of historicals and Nathaniel Bowditch is a remarkable real-life character who certainly deserves to be remembered. However the book is uneven–my feeling is that it starts out strong but after the first third or half, there are just too many incidents and people, and not enough depth or description. I wish that the book had focused on fewer events and hadn’t tried to cover as much of Bowditch’s life as it did.
The book has very positive reviews on Goodreads, 4.13 out of 5, and Amazon, 4.7, so it looks like I’m in a minority in giving it 3 stars at most.
The Westing Game (1979), by Ellen Raskin. This is a reread. How I loved this book as a kid! I loved that it challenged me to keep the people straight, to guess at clues and answers, and it felt very profound. I’m not sure it stands up to all of that now, but I still really liked it. And I like that it is not a giant paper pile of grimness.
Recommendation: An entertaining read for an adult, but it lacks the profundity it seemed to have when I was a kid.
A Year Down Yonder (2001), by Richard Peck. Quite funny, though I felt that the main character is less realized than the grandma. The grandma becomes sympathetic without becoming some sort of noble savage living in the boondocks. Not an incessant downer, which is a nice change.
Recommendation: Enjoyable for an adult.
Kira-Kira (2005), by Cynthia Kadohata. Much different perspective than many Newberys, but with the same sort of “take your medicine, kid” ultimate outcome. I don’t feel uplifted. It’s written well, but I don’t feel like I really gained anything from it. It’s a good book that has flashes of brilliance (befitting the title) and is ultimately fairly run-of-the-Newbery-mill.
Recommendation: Eh. I didn’t really want to keep reading, so I can’t recommend that you start.
I’m at the halfway point in my Newbery reads, and frankly I’m sick of the constant dying.
If you’re tired of characters dying, don’t read Carry On, Mr Bowditch. OTOH only one of the deaths was really emotional; the others who died were all walk-on characters like the majority of characters in the book.
Here’s a sweet and charming winner where nobody dies: A Visit to William Blake’s Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers, by Nancy Willard. And it’s beautifully illustrated, the first book to win both the Newbery and the Caldecott (as a runner-up). The poems are whimsical, magical and evocative; I felt a real sense of loss that I didn’t know of this book when my kids were growing up and wish that I had had the chance to read it to them.
Recommended, especially for poetry lovers.