Bluh. I didn't care for this book at all. A coming of age tale following 4 middle schoolers. I don't think that the content was my issue but rather the lack-thereof I read this a year ago and dash it all if the only thing I can remember is thinking it was too realistic. Things happen - that's the long and short of it.
Full disclosure - I started Rifles for Watie in college - it probably took me 5 years to actually pick it up and finish. I'm not really into the history surrounding the Civil War so I didn't have too much of a base of reference for some of this book but it was easy enough to keep up with. The book is interesting in that it shows both the North and South in positive and negative shades. Our protagonist is all both sides at points (a spy and I believe injury?) and he has friends on both sides. Overall, a fine read if you are really interested in the Civil War, but not one I'd recommend otherwise.
2020 has been a year. I know that is technically true every year, but boy howdy is it especially true this year. I was able, for the first time ever, to buy (some of) the Newbery books the day they were announced thanks to my appendix.
Taking one for the team?
I had been experiencing pains that the clinic in Kaktovik thought, 'may be appendicitis, maybe not'. I flew in on Monday and went to the bookstore. I took myself Tuesday morning to a walk-in clinic in Fairbanks and proceeded to get bounced around town until I found myself checked in to the hospital because, yeah, it was appendicitis. I had the foresight to bring the books with me and finished three out of four honor books by Wednesday. I spent the next week preparing for our school's Battle of the Books and planned to read the last honor book plus the winner and be done by the 10th.... Except on the 7th the school burned down. What I'm trying to say is I hope 2020 gets better because I don't much like the options for getting worse.* Anyhow, you aren't here for a soap opera - you're here for the books, and honestly - they're some great ones!
*See, Katie, this is why you shouldn't put off finishing your blog posts.
Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga
A free verse book that was a very quick read. The story begins in Syria where Jude lives with her parents and older brother. When tensions begin to rise Jude's brother joins the underground revolution while she and her pregnant mother travel to the USA to seek asylum with her uncle. She begins attending the same school as her cousin and gradually adjusting to life in the US, but she struggles with feeling like she belongs, eventually meeting another Muslim girl close to her age that also chooses to wear a hijab. Just as Jude is beginning to feel comfortable the news of a terrorist attack upsets her new life. She witnesses and is subject to overt racism, making her feel scared and lonely. By the end she has found her voice and made several friends, though her future is still uncertain she manages to look forward with hope and excitement.
Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams
A tough read, this book touches on heavy topics such as racism, addiction, poverty, and self-loathing; this deeply touching story hits all the perfect notes. Genesis is an only child with an alcoholic gambling-addict father and a mother at the end of her rope. The story opens with Genesis finding all her possessions out by the curb and the house locked up with a large eviction notice. Her father has failed once again to pay the rent. Humiliated because some kids from school witnessed, Genesis adds to her list of things she hates about herself. She believes her father's addictions are because she has very dark skin, like him, instead of lighter brown like her mother. She tries many times to find ways to lighten her skin - even if it may prove dangerous. Her father convinces someone to let them rent a big house in the suburbs where Genesis attends a new school full of rich families. In another story about finding your voice Genesis is encouraged by the choir teacher to pour her feelings into her singing abilities.
The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander, illustrated by Kadir Nelson
A picture book but so, so powerful. In the past I've mentioned that it can be hard to justify picture books because the Newbery is awarded for just the writing, but I'm happy to report that this book's writing easily stands on its own. However, The Undefeated also won the Caldecott so you know that this book is bringing the whole package! Honestly, it is short enough that everyone should read it if they are able, but I'm also going to link the author reading this as a stand-alone poem.
Scary Stories for Young Foxes by Christian McKay Heidicker
Children's horror is back. While not the scariest book I've ever read it certainly tried to live up to the title. This is a collection of short stories following the adventures of two young foxes trying to make their way in a world that seems stacked against them. The first story has kits getting attacked by a rabid fox and let's just say it doesn't really go uphill from there until you reach the very end. Just the right dose of scary and uplifting, you feel genuinely glad whenever the foxes overcome a hurdle and hold your breath when they are set back.
New Kid by Jerry Craft
This year's winner is *drumroll please* A GRAPHIC NOVEL!!! It is happening people, a graphic novel has won the highest award that a children's book (published in the US) can win, soon more and more people will have to admit that this genre is real literature. Jordan makes it into a prestigious academy on scholarship. Jordan feels out of place being one of the few African-American students in his new school. He works hard at fitting in, wondering how much the environment is changing him. He makes friends and even finds himself standing up for what is right despite feeling nervous. Overall a great read and well worth winning.
Final thoughts:
I think that my favorite book from the batch was 'Other Words for Home' but honestly they were all great reads. I think only 'Scary Stories for Young Foxes' is the book I wouldn't want to see as the winner. There is a definite thread of belonging and overcoming racism running through these stories which I feel is certainly a reflection on what is happening in the world recently, as I've said before the Newbery does not exist in a vacuum and quite often reflects what was happening at the time.
This was certainly an odd book. I knew it was a mix of autobiographical and fiction going in and spent quite a while thinking that everything sounded just plausible enough to be his actual childhood. Then you reach the meat of the plot and you say, "Ah, here you are fiction."
Set in 1960s Pennsylvania this story tells us about the summer that Jack was grounded for firing his dad’s rifle, a war souvenir. His mother also arranges for him to assist an elderly Miss Volker. So far this all seems pretty normal. But then there comes the increasing number of obituaries and a mystery... and the deeper it gets the more you say THAT never happened, except you can’t be too sure because stranger things have happened. I just wish somewhere there was a guide to sorting it all out.
Overall, an enjoyable enough read, and I may find myself tempted to read the sequel at some point.
The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox might be the most graphic of the Newbery winners that I've read. I thought it was a good book - though I wouldn't really call it an enjoyable book. Several parts of the book disgusted me or made me uncomfortable (arguably the point). Because it delves into the 19th century slave trade this book is going to require some historical background on the reader's part. This may appear to be a slim book, but for subject matter alone I'd push it towards the higher end of the Newbery's age range. There is strong language (yes - the word you are probably thinking of), violence, gruesome death, and general immorality to be found throughout the book.
The main character is Jesse, a fife player from New Orleans, who is kidnapped and brought aboard the slave ship The Moonlight in order to play tunes for captured Africans to dance to as they are brought to the Caribbean and United States to be sold. Jesse himself is against the slave trade though the book never seems to give him stronger reasons than he is a good person (this doesn't hurt the story much because it was written for children). You can definitely pick up on the trauma the African people went through on the ship but again, due to the target audience, not a lot of depth is gone into.
Overall a good read. This book perhaps highlights the problems of reading these books as an adult. I kept wanting the author to delve deeper - but on the other hand I thought this was already pushing it about as far as it could go and still be appropriate for children.
First off - I occasion the blogs that discuss the favorites and give predictions but somehow I had not heard of a single one of these books prior to the award ceremony. Several things here to get excited about though - including historical fiction from an era I know relatively little about and a book set in Medieval France, you guys know how I'm beginning to feel about these books set in the Middle Ages.
The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani
As the title suggests this book is written in diary form. This is an effective way to combine historical narrative with a fictional story. It takes place in the mid-1940s when British rule ended in India and the country split into two pieces, Pakistan and India. I had a passing understanding of this time period from high school but this short book more than doubled my understanding. When the new country of Pakistan is formed it is designated as a country for Muslims (a religious minority in the larger country of India) and Muslims living in all parts of India begin migrating there. But some of the people living in this newly outlined area were Hindu or Sikhs (a religion I mistakingly believed was a sect of either Islam or Hinduism whenever I heard the word), those people began the migration in the opposite direction. This resulted in the largest mass migration in history, around 14 million people moving from one country to the other. As often happens when political and religious tensions mix with large groups of people - violence broke out. The author tells us that approximately 1 million people are estimated to have been killed (though no official number exists).
The fictional tale here is that Nisha has just turned twelve and received a diary for a gift. She uses the diary as a means to communicate with her mother who died in childbirth. Her parents were a mixed marriage, her mother was Muslim and her father is Hindi, their families had disapproved of the marriage but they were married in secret anyway. Now Nisha lives with father (a doctor), Dadi (her grandmother), her twin brother Amil, and the families' cook Kazi (a Muslim man). This interesting array of characters allows us to explore many aspects of the time period. I love how this novel touches on so many things in such a natural way - faith, culture, history, conflict (and its effects), learning disabilities, class, friendship, anxiety, and most of all - family. I highly recommend this book to any and all.
The Book of Boy by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Basic plot dump - Boy is a hunchbacked goat-herder living in 1300s France. One day he meets a pilgrim named Secundus who is collecting the relics of Saint Peter to bring them to Rome. At first Boy is frightened of Secundus but eventually grows to like him.
Ooooooooh boy. Here was another book was a large Catholic base. (I mean 1350 France and Rome hardly leave many other options besides Catholicism.) I'm beginning to see that blending Catholicism and fantasy is a tricky road to trod - probably any religion,which brings so many questions to books on my shelves. But, in honesty, I think this book came closer to getting it right than The Inquisitor's Tale and The Relic of Perilous Falls, the latter of which was written by a pretty prominent Catholic author. And this book was doing so well at writing what seemed to be an honest attempt at interpretation of the religious fervor that many had - especially concerning relics. A relic is... well here is Bishop Barron to help me out:
What is depicted in the book is when relic veneration (and probably something more akin to worship) was in its heyday. A couple reviews said this was anti-Catholic and I'd say that it is not how relics are meant to be viewed but certainly how (at least in my Church history class) many people did view them. It became such a big problem that there are now Canon Laws regarding the issue. If this had been about as far as the author strayed into religion the book would have rated 5 stars. I'm going to reveal a couple major spoilers that are the reason this book has been knocked down to 4 stars (skip blue text to avoid spoilers)
Boy is not a hunchback, he's an angel. He just doesn't know it and has been living on the manor lands the whole time. Okay, let me share a secret with you - angels are not corporeal! If you are going to go to such lengths to try to depict an accurate setting with Catholic traditions why would you go this route? I'm aware that this is a fairly common trope and angels appear human in several Bible stories, so I'm giving this point some leeway. What I'm not letting slide is the fact that Secundus is trying to complete a quest to get into heaven after 1000 years in Hell. Since the author has chosen to found the beliefs and practices of her characters in Catholicism this falls flat on its face. Catholic belief is that Hell is eternal - there are no take-backs once you realize that your wife and child went to heaven and you'll never see them again. Especially frustrating because Catholics believe in purgatory - which would have fit the story so much better and not fiddled quite so much with doctrine. There was literally a built-in half-way house just waiting to be used.
Merci Suárez Changes Gears by Meg Medina
And now for the main event! I absolutely adored this book. I connected with the main character in so many ways. Meg Medina has given us a contemporary character quite unlike any I've read before. In that Merci is contemporary to the this time period. I've seen so many complaints from people saying something to the effect of this book not feeling timeless. With due respect I can't help but wonder just how old the reviewers are making those comments. Just like I might have to give up trying defend the literary merits of graphic novels to people in generations before mine, it may not be worth the fight of saying that just because technology exists in a book that doesn't suddenly take it away from being 'timeless'. I feel like The Hobbit and Holes both qualify as timeless - but I wouldn't for a moment argue that they have the same levels of technology. Yes, children have cell phones, you don't have to like it (generally I don't and this book kind of addresses why), but you should be prepared to acknowledge it and really the book would feel a little phony without them.
However, the real issues addressed in the book are what truly make it timeless. Sixth grade has been a time of tough transitions for time immemorial - if I were to pick any year to completely forget about it would be sixth grade. Bullying, as much as people try, is going to continue to be an issue as long as hormones, low impulse control, and partially developed pre-frontal cortexes are gathered together for several hours each day. Although I can sympathize with Merci's struggles with bullies, I cannot understand why she continues to try to connect and hang out with someone she continually describes as being mean.
While I identified with Merci's struggles being the target of classmates bullying, the subplot that really got me was her family story. As soon as I read the dust jacket I knew how the book was going to play out - not because it was so predictable - but because I lived it. Merci's grandfather is changing, forgetting things, getting lost, and such. Today Alzheimer's disease in the 6th leading cause of death in the US - I have no idea what those statistics were in the last two decades, but I do know that I had not really heard of it or seen it portrayed in media when my grandmother had it. I'm glad that this children's book addresses Alzheimer's because, make no mistake, children are being exposed in real life and books are a great way to learn and connect.
This book had me crying and laughing. It depicted that challenging time of life that everyone goes through around eleven or twelve, and it did so with great poise. The title is so appropriate - even if you don't really realize it until the very end.
So, do I agree with the choice of winner? Absolutely, actually I'd have been happy with either Merci Suárez Changes Gears or The Night Diaries. The Book of Boy was okay, but not quite as good. I do wish Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson and The Journey of Little Charlie by Christopher Paul Curtis had received Newbery nods. but I do think my favorite book from 2018 did win.
Oh man. This round-up spans three years! So forgive me if I'm a little vague on the details. Going back and looking I see that I rated three of them as two stars and two as three stars - obviously not my favorite batch here. But my calculator indicates that I'm 74% through with reading (not blogging) so I'm sure the remainder will be tougher as they are the books I've intentionally not read yet. I apologize to both my readers that this blog was basically dead there for a while. Hopefully by catching up I'll be able to squelch any desire to let it go so long!
1. Trumpeter of Krakow was quite easily my favorite book of the batch and probably the first I would ever re-read. I've discussed before that reading it while in Krakow surely boosted its favor with me - and I think that a re-read might have a similar effect of transporting me back to my favorite city in Europe!
2. Miracles on Maple Hill - If Trumpeter of Krakow will take me back somewhere I love. Than perhaps Miracles on Maple Hill is tops in the opposite category of making me love somewhere I've never been. I'm truly a Heartlander, born and raised in that middle bit of the country some people call fly-over. But books like this really fuel a desire to visit the rural Northeast.
3. The Hero and the Crown was a fun book that I suspect may have been influential in bringing us more fantasy heroines. There are still aspects that sit uneasy with me - but is it a problem to have a book that challenges you?
4. Adam of the Road is a story set in Medieval England. I'm apparently missing a whole sub-genre of literature here! The more of these stories I read the more I want. This one is great because of the traveling aspect, but also a little frustrating I just want Adam to get back to his father!
5. The Girl Who Drank the Moon was a charming tale that reads very similar to a classic fairy tale. It had all the tropes: witches, dragons, animal transformations, abandoned children, and corrupt government. Definitely a fun one to read again.
6. Dicey's Song was so dreary. The story was okay I suppose and had every right to be depressing - but it drug out so much.
7. M.C. Higgins, the Great - An odd little book. An interesting idea for a story but they just never truly went anywhere with it.
8. Ginger Pye - This was just so incredibly dull.
9. The Dark Frigate - Somehow even more dull.
10. Amos Fortune: Free Man is an incredibly dated book that I have actually ranked lower with the passage of time. Sure, Amos had a decent enough life - but at the cost of his freedom and after so much trauma. The last couple years have made me rethink my evaluation of this book.
And now, the countdown!
A Wrinkle in Time
Number the Stars
Crispin: Cross of Lead
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Julie of the Wolves
Maniac Magee
Bud, Not Buddy
King of the Wind
The Trumpeter of Krakow
Out of the Dust
When You Reach Me
Crossover
The Tale of Despereaux
The Door in the Wall
Holes
Caddie Woodlawn
Kira-Kira
Sounder
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village
