The White Stag, Newbery Winner 1938

After a nearly six month absence (yipes!) I'm back. This time I dug into that oddball decade filled with books that are okay.... but lack a certain kid-appeal: the 30s.

I really enjoyed The White Stag with its condensed epic saga and gorgeous illustrations, but it didn't really feel like timeless children's literature. The Hun invasion is bloody, the peaceful Magyars are looked at with contempt by a character who is very well respected, and we get possibly the most depressing love story in children's literature.

However - this was an extraordinary peek into the folklore of Hungary (as noted in the author's introduction), how interesting that what historians and geneticists consider as the origin of modern Hungary is basically the opposite of what is found in folklore. But the true connections are just as fascinating, showing that Hunnic DNA in fact is found within the Magyars suggesting that the 'brother tribes' bit in the story is at least partially true. (I've not done a whole lot of research so perhaps I muddied the waters here, don't quote me.)

I'm having trouble coming up with things to say about this book, seeing as it's only 94 pages, and copiously illustrated to boot. Overall a good read that skews middle school boy in target demographic.

Seriously though. Gorgeous illustrations.

The Complete 2015 Newbery Read-through

I was able to read through all of this year's books in two days. Then I just let it sit and sit... and sit. I had other things to do, but I didn't want too much time to slip by so, without further ado, my thoughts on the Newbery honorees and winner for 2015.

El Deafo by Cece Bell

This fun and engaging book is the first graphic novel to be honored by the American Library Association with a Newbery! Let me go ahead and climb on a soapbox and say that I completely approve of the growing acceptance of graphic novels as being real literature. I think that if students are learning with them, and inclined to pick them (which many students are) then let's write more stories about a wide variety of topics. I'm an artsy-fartsy person, I love me some long books with pictures - most of the time the easiest way to get this is through a graphic novel, and there are just as many wonderful art styles to be found on this shelf as the picture books shelf. In NO way though, should this be considered a 'stepping stone' to 'real books'. *shudder* They ARE REAL BOOKS!!! I can find plenty of graphic novels with a higher word count and higher reading level then say.... The Old Man and the Sea, but one certainly can't hold one against the other and say, "ah, this tome here has been bestowed with all the qualities of bookitude, but, alas, it's brethren dost lack necessary qualities because of its frivolities."

Actually I don't use bar soap... I had to use a soupbox instead.

Although calling it a graphic novel might be misleading because it isn't a novel at all, rather it is a memoir focused on the author's struggle to find friends and navigate through her school years in the 1970s. The catch? She is deaf; she uses hearing aids both at home and at school. Her school aid is particularly cumbersome, being a large box that must be worn like a backpack (except frontwards). She makes some friends, but they either aren't great people or don't understand how to act around her. Not that she was particularly forthcoming with information. When she finally finds a great friend it all seems perfect - until an accident threatens everything.

There are a couple of inappropriate moments, but normal pre-pubescent inappropriateness. Overall the book is the right mixture of serious and humorous to keep a person from feeling down, but to convey the loneliness the author felt at times. As with any graphic novel memoir whatever the illustrations are an important consideration, that may be where this book falls shortest. I like the idea of rabbits for characters in a book focused so much on ears, but often-times the pictures simply remind me of Arthur. I think that some readers best suited for the story might be turned off by the 'cute' pictures.

Overall a great book to choose for many reasons:

1. Long may the graphic novel reign!

2. Bring on the adolescent memoirs.

3. The addition of some ability diversity into the line-up. (I've not read many of the Honor books, but between them and the winners only a handful of primary characters with physical disabilities come to mind and none that I recall being deaf.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Look at all those stickers. It can't win too many more or they'll have to put some on back.

Another memoir! This is the book that I was certain would win based on all my very complex calculations. This is a book written in verse, so it's length is semi-deceptive. There are some long poems and some short ones, but it is pretty much all in blank verse. I'm not usually a big fan of memoirs, but this book was beautiful, I can see why it was a frontrunner pretty much since publication. Jacqueline talks about never quite fitting in with other kids, and always wondering where home really was.

The descriptions in this book are quite vivid without being drawn out or over-rendered. I've never spent much time in the South - nor do I ever, ever, ever, ever, ever want to. One week every decade or so has serviced me pretty well up to now. But the descriptions in the poems are full and palpable. I could almost feel the humidity hanging in the air, smell the warm sticky night air, and hear the crazy chorus of crickets sounding for miles around.

Meanwhile in my neck of the woods... I'm lucky winter is my favorite.

I love that our protagonist finally discovers that she can take control through words. That too was my feeling, I loved the escape of reading - but adored the command of writing.

Totally deserved the award for a couple reasons:

1. Diversity, the author herself notes that, growing up, she was very excited to find a book with people that reminded her of herself. We just need to add fuel to the fire until is no longer something to search for, but rather something that just sort of happens.

2. Memoir? Poetry? Both great additions to the normal fictional prose format of the Newbery.

Which brings us to....

THE WINNER OF THE 2015 NEWBERY AWARD

This book has it all! A young male protagonist. Sibling Rivalry. Young Love. Parental Struggles. Basketball. Poetry... Excuse me. BASKETBALL AND POETRY?!?!

I heard about this book winning and I questioned the sanity of the award committee. I shook my head and thought, "oh no, looks like they're trying to be cool." 

I read the description and didn't feel any better. Surely this was some sort of stunt to bring in those 'reluctant' readers.

Then I started the book. And finished the book. And immediately started looking for the book's next reader. I've never been so compelled to push a book into someone's had and say, make sure people know. Know that they should read this book and find other people to read it.

The last book I read about sports was... spvcsfateeetgbsdfb, yeah - nothing comes to mind (unless we are counting bullfighting) - but basketball? I like basketball, I really do, as a very casual watcher. But I know almost nothing about it other than it is a billion times more interesting than football. Also I can make the occasional basket. Well then. I can see basketball pulling the kids in, but poetry? That can be a tough initial sell for the kind of people I've known who play b-ball (do we still abbreviate it that way?), many of whom don't actually read an abundance of books. But the poems in this book are short, catchy, and come in a variety of styles.

GAH!!! I want to say more, but feel that I'd give too much away. Just trust me when I say that this book is totally worth it, go buy it, borrow it, or beg it off a friend, but please, please, please just give it a chance.

Why this book totally earned its award:

1. High-interest topic - Basketball is a very popular sport in most of the country, this book has a boy holding a basketball on the cover and is named for a common maneuver. 

2. Diversity - We need brown boys just as badly as brown girls.

3. Boys - Boys are notoriously harder to sell on the idea of reading a novel. But I think a great many would bite on this book. It has officially unseated Holes as the 'boy-appeal' winner.

4. Subject - The subjects covered in this book are heavy and handled in a wonderful manner. They all come together in a beautiful, believable way.

5. Poetry - The poetry is tough and different, there are several varieties throughout the book, but they all play their part correctly. And since poetry is actually quite a handy tool for reading development this tag-teams with reason #1 to do double duty for struggling readers.

Overall, I'd say that I was wrong. Utterly and completely. The award committee was well within their right minds to choose this book as the award winner.

The Wheel on the School, Newbery Winner 1955

This book has been a pleasant surprise. First off, it is from the 50's which haven't been getting too much love from me. My first impression glancing it over was that it reminded me of Dobry (bad.bad.bad.). And lastly, Maurice Sendak is okay, I like his art but it is rarely associated with works that I love.
And I'm actually not a fan of his most famous book Where the Wild Things Are.

And you'll just have to deal with it.

Anywhoozles... this book takes place in the booming city small town tiny fishing village of Shora in the Netherlands. How small? There are six children enrolled in the local school, to be fair though the next town is close enough for children and elderly men to walk to and back in a day. 

The sole girl in the school writes an essay about storks and reads it in school one day. In her essay she mentions that other towns have storks but there aren't any in Shora. This prompts the teacher to challenge the students to think about why there aren't any storks. (That's right student-guided learning! Happy dance time!!!)

The students decide that the problem is that Shora's roofs are all too steep and they should put a wheel on the school roof in hopes that storks will build a nest, the rest of the novel outlines the various searches for a wagon wheel. The students need to work in various ways to try and solve their problem, I love that this book encourages the learning process - identify a problem, look for solutions to the problem, test solutions, and review the results.

Another cool thing is that there is an intergenerational dimension to this book. The children, in their search for a wheel, begin to really talk to the adults around them, especially the older people that they usually avoided. This leads to them discovering some amazing things and finding their greatest helpers.

All in all this was a sweet book, with a moral that is carried forth through the text that if enough people begin wondering about something, then eventually something will come of it. I think that I will be looking for more books by Meindert DeJong!

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, Newbery Winner 1923

Now this is a book I'd read before - I believe I was in high school, though Goodreads gives me a date partway through college. Either way I grown a lot since reading it the first time - I've forgiven what some called a bowdlerization of the original text, but I now believe was a well-intentioned attempt to make the book more suitable for today's young readers. If you have the pressing need to know some of the edits they can be found in many places online - here's one that seems pretty thorough.
Now I haven't read any of the other books in this series, but I may because the best bits of the book were really great. However quite a bit of it seemed 'meh'. The author seems to have suffered from a flaw that I know I have manymanymanymany problems with in my own writing. Consistency. Characters are brought on the titular voyage only to not be mentioned at all for chapter after chapter. Things are brought up as seemingly important bits of plot and then NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. The Law of Chekhov's Gun people, try to follow it!

Another tiny issue that I had was the fact that the text generally refers to Doctor Dolittle simply as 'The Doctor'. If you are a fellow Whovian you can probably understand how this messed with me. It also insulted vets... which means it insulted James Herriot, and that is basically unforgivable. But along with James Herriot it insulted he friend and co-worker, Tristan, who was portrayed on TV by Peter Davison.

Who happened to be The Doctor... so we've come full circle.

I think that even more frustrating was how... conveniently... things sometimes occurred. Polynesia (a fairly important character, after all she is the first teacher one has when learning to speak to animals) is introduced in concept on page 27. Doctor Dolittle wishes she were still with him, because she should really be the one to teach Tommy to speak with animals. Then on page 28,

"... I often wonder if she remained happy in Africa, and whether I shall ever see her funny old solemn face again. Good old Polynesia! A most extraordinary bird - well, well!"

Just at that moment we heard the noise of someone running behind us and, turning around, we saw Jip, the dog, rushing down the road after us as fast as his legs could bring him. He seemed very excited about something, and as soon as he came up to us he started barking and whining to the Doctor in a peculiar way. Then the Doctor, too, seemed to get all worked up and began talking and making queer signs to the dog.

At length he turned to me, his face shining with happiness. "Polynesia has come back!" he cried. "Imagine it! Jip says she has just arrived at the house. My! And it's been five years since I saw her..."

Sadly, I think that even with the edits this books age shows very clearly. Doctor Dolittle believes he is the only hope for a tribe living on a remote island. Polynesia points out they were doing fine before he arrived and they will do just fine without him. (Though quite a few of her previous remarks weren't so kind.) There are some other odd things, especially concerning Bumpo, that mean that the child who reads this should be well versed in reading a book in the context in which it was written. But I maintain that the editor did right with the changes, after all this is for children. If you asked my opinion about editing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn I'd let you know that I'm against it, because it is meant for readers that ought to have a familiarity with race relations through history.

A disconcerting footnote...

Did this book, one that I was angry with for being 'censored', one that I hardly cared about anyway, inspire one of the characters in the book I'm writing? It really depends on when I first read it, but surely the odd coinkydinks would have been noteworthy if I had already written the character... Polynesia is a sassy, kinda bossy, very smart, and outrageously old parrot. There is a minor character, a beautiful bird named Miranda (which seems like an odd name for a Brazilian bird). 

My novel contains a sassy, kinda bossy, very smart, and outrageously old parrot named... Miranda (whom I outfitted with the name after going through a yearbook until something felt right...).

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.

What I Checked Out at the Library... and the Impressions They Give Me

I checked out a swath of books from the library this week, mostly Newbery Winners, but also one honor book and one... other book.

As I sit here trying to decide which to read next I must grapple with all my emotions concerning each - gathered primarily by, you guessed it, judging books by their covers!

First off the title - I'm put off by it, you see I don't like romances very much and this title is totally suggesting that to me. But the author has written another book that I enjoy (Bridge to Terbithia). So maybe it won't be a total wash. Speaking of wash, did that girl bathe in liquid gold? Why is she so shiny? Is she a ghost? Is that Nancy Drew? Maybe this book is a mystery... hmm, that trumps romance. Also - something about music. Perusing the copyright page I see mention of twins. Those two don't look like cousins, let alone sisters. (Unless of course goldilocks is dead.)

Oooooh the Caribbean! That looks like fun! flips book over New Hampshire? Soooooo, no Caribbean. I think I've heard this one is sorta dull. But it is also pretty short, one sitting - no problem. Inside pictures are cute and full of whimsey. 

No description on book. I'm immediately reminded of Dobry (not a good thing). Pictures by Maurice Sendak... but must be one of his earlier commissions, puts me in mind of a book he illustrated with a rabbit in it. Also, look a bird! Pelican?

I've read this one before. It is abridged or edited whatever you want to call it, due to some unfortunate racial issues. I agree since it's meant for kids and a complex historical discussion is not likely to accompany this fantasy. BUT - I personally want that fact stated at the beginning of the book, not the end.

I've also read this one, and must say that I really enjoy it. I kept putting it off so that I had something to look forward to when I reached the dregs. Thinking about acquiring one of the movie adaptations and doing a follow-up post on my previous Lights... Camera... Action!

An Honor book that I'm reading now because the sequel won the Award a few years later. How far from Chicago? Why are they in that little plane? Must be the 1920s.