Roller Skates, Newbery 1937

 This book was... okaaaaay... I've seen a few reviews from people that have read more of Ruth Sawyer's books and they seem to agree that this is not her best work. In this very episodic story 10 year old  Lucinda is left with some family friends in NYC while her parents spend a year in Italy. We are given a lovely setting filled with a variety of characters - perhaps too many characters. I liked all of them but none was quite fleshed out to their fullest potential because we had to bounce around between more than 20 side characters in a 200 page novel. And there were three lousy conclusions - I'm gonna drop what would be a major spoiler in any other novel - you've been warned....





A) One of Lucinda's many friends, an East Asian woman referred to by Lucinda as Princess Zayda is murdered

B) Tony and Luc- you're still thinking about point A aren't you?

Yep, murder. It is hinted that domestic abuse is involved but I'm not sure I'd have picked up on that subtext as a child reader. Lucinda begins visiting this woman frequently and once the woman's husband angrily comes home but seems relieved to find Lucinda instead of another man. Lucinda is so afraid she runs away. Over the novel Lucinda gives the woman English lessons and drops in to visit her frequently. After being dismissed early from school one day she decides to surprise her friend and goes to her apartment - where she discovers that she has been stabbed with a dagger that is still in her body! Lucinda quickly summons the landlord who says that it wouldn't do for Lucinda to be involved with the police so they will wait until the maid discovers the body and the whole thing is never really mentioned again??? I cannot fathom why this was put in the book only to be dismissed so completely. I saw a couple people mention that this book is loosely autobiographical... did... did little Ruth discover a murder victim?

Moving on.

B) Tony and Lucinda have the worst possible conclusion. Theirs is probably the strongest relationship in the book and it is so completely wasted at the end. (When hearing there was a sequel I was sure we were in for more Tony and Lucinda but.... guess not since the sequel is in Maine.) These two have been really happy and helpful friends throughout the book but they just kind of part without any good bye and that is partly due to....

C) The book just ends. I can see how the abrupt ending of Lucinda looking to the reservoir and asking her reflection if she'd like to always be 10 and stay forever in the park led Peter Sieruta, a blogger and book reviewer with far more credentials than I, to assume the book ended with her suicide. The book feels like the last several pages managed to get lost!

Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon, Newbery Winner 1928

I had put this book off for so long because I very much expected not to like it. That is really the case with all three of my remaining Newberys. However I was so surprised! I loved this book and gave it the coveted five star rating on Goodreads - something I've gotten stingier with over time. I thought I'd check how the average user ranks it among the Newbery winners (of which there are 99 at time of writing)

98. Gay-Neck 3.30

99. Dobry 3.26

Many years ago I mentioned that I wasn't a horse girl. But as I was reading Gay-Neck I realized I was definitely a bird girl. I can take or leave horse books. Most cat books are not my thing. Dog books tend to be pretty good. But bird books? I'm racking my brain and I've never met a bird book I didn't like!

This novel is a great look at an upper caste life in late 1800s India, it is actually an own-voices novel which is not something I'd ever stumbled across for this particular time and place. Rudyard Kipling is one of my favorite writers - but I'll be the first to admit that his view is problematic when it comes to colonialism (imperialism?). Back to Dhan Gopal Mukerji, he immigrated to the US in his early 20s where he quickly became interested in many social movements and took to writing to support himself and his education. He became a very popular children's author - and in 1928 was awarded the Newbery. Apparently at the awards dinner he was seated in an inconspicuous place as the committee wanted the award to be a surprise; this was the first time an author of color won the Newbery and they were afraid his presence would be a giveaway before the announcement. Sadly, his fame may have contributed to anxiety and fatigue leading to Mukerji's suicide at the age of 46.

The plot of the book is two-fold. First it focuses on the raising and life in India of homing pigeons. The first-person narrator (perhaps loosely based on the author) raises pigeons in Calcutta, he introduces the text: "For a pigeon, life is a repetition of two incidents: namely a quest of food and avoidance of attacks by its enemies." Several times Gay-Neck is attacked and occasionally injured. After these attacks he must not only be physically healed but mentally, emotionally, perhaps even spiritually. On a couple occasions we are allowed to understand where Gay-Neck has been through his own first person narration.

At the mid-point of the book Gay-Neck is sent with a friend of the narrator to World War I in France. This book predates World War II so simply refers to 'a war in Europe'. The text manages to convey some horror of war while also maintaining itself as a text for children. Eventually Gay-Neck is released from the war suffering what we would come to refer to years later as PTSD. Through time and patience he is once again well enough to fly.

Mukerji leaves us with a text that emphasizes not only courage, but love and understanding. He used the story of a pigeon to illustrate the human condition - saying that fear is the root of our problems. He had been impacted and saddened by WWI, turmoil in his native India, and social struggles in the USA. The final line of the book offers his hope for the world - "Peace be unto all!"

As a side note the narrator is so moved by the sight of Everest at one point that he says, "O thou summit of sanctity, thou inviolate and eternal, may no man tarnish thee, nor may any mortal stain they purity even by his slightest touch. May thou remain forever unvanquished, O thou backbone of the universe, and measurement of immortality." I looked it up and was happy to find that Everest was not summited until 1953, several years after the author's death.