Miss Hickory, Newbery Winner 1947

I've read four books this year: the fun adventure/ thriller Escape to Witch Mountain, the emotional and beautiful The Book Thief, an excellent novelization of one of my favorite movies The Labyrinth, and... this. Now this little book is fine and I read it in one sitting, so not too time consuming, but.... Holy moly is it ever weird.

This probably is in the running for the weirdest Newbery book. Weirder than a social system built entirely on types of food, weirder than being raised by ghosts, weirder than a massage giving bear, and weirder than bug poetry. It had a certain charm, brought on by the similarities in prose to...

If you knew this was coming, you've been reading my blog too long.

The were definitely similarities to Rabbit Hill you know, talking woodland creatures old-timey atmosphere, all that. And there were lots of similarities to Thimble Summer  seeing as every chapter was a brand new episode unto itself... often with little 'resolution'. 

The writing is clearly the selling point here. The author can make simple, yet wonderful descriptions, and very enjoyable, natural dialogue. My favorite bit is when Miss Hickory is telling off the barn cat Mr. T. Willard-Brown:

It's all your fault, Mr. T. They had to leave to get away from you, scratching on doors and purring in the kitchen for milk. You are only a cat with a cat's ways. I shall tell all Hillsborough what your given name is, Tippy, because you have a white tip to your tail. Willard is for the barn where you were born. Brown is pretense. The hyphen is putting on airs. You are sly, Tippy. I always suspected it." 

And this is where you should stop, if you don't want any spoilers. However, if you don't much care I'm going to outline the weirdness.

• Main character is made from a hickory nut and apple branch but is very much alive.
• Neighbors with a squirrel - who cannot plan ahead to save his life in the long winter ahead.
• She teaches the hen-pheasants to sew (honestly the one plot point that returned often enough.
• The fawn (after his mother is killed) following a red something back to his home, we are never-ever told what the red-thing was.
• A weird Christmas fable type thing (I'm a religious person but it still struck me as feeling a bit odd.) all the animals come to the barn to see the impression of a child in the stables... ALL the animals, living and dead. Plus somehow, giraffes, elephants, and lions end up in New Hampshire...
• A character who is introduced solely for the purpose of eating his old skin.
• And, of course, the fact that Miss Hickory's head gets EATEN after Squirrel nearly starves to death. Her body then climbs up the tree and grafts itself in, thereby giving a little umph to make the tree start flowering again.