Forgotten Newbery Books that Are Really Worth Reading

[osprey_archer]

rachelmanija suggested a list of Forgotten Newbery Books that Are Really Worth Reading, so I’ve compiled my top ten, listed here in order of year of publication. For obvious reasons, this list skews toward the older books, and I tried to pick ones that I felt have been really forgotten, although it turns out that it can be a bit hard to tell if a book has been truly forgotten or if I, personally, just hadn’t happened to heard of it before this project.


1. Marjorie Hill Allee's Jane’s Island, 1932. Come for an engaging story that also meditates on women’s place in the sciences and society, stay for lovely description of life around the Wood’s Hole research station, and also for the cranky German scientist who is VERY shell-shocked from World War I and FIRMLY intends to prove that nature is red in tooth and claw.

2. Dorothy P. Lathrop’s The Fairy Circus, 1932. FAIRIES put on a CIRCUS with the aid of WOODLAND CREATURES. What more could you want from a book!

3. Erick Berry’s Winged Girl of Knossos, 1934. Have you always wanted a retelling of the tale of Theseus and the minotaur crossed with Daedalus and Icarus with a genderswapped Icarus who is a tomboy in the tomboy-welcoming culture of ancient Crete? Yes you have.

4. Christine Weston’s Bhimsa, The Dancing Bear, 1946. Two boys (one English and one Indian) go adventuring across India in the company of their friend Bhimsa, the dancing bear. A fun adventure story.

5. Cyrus Fisher’s The Avion My Uncle Flew, 1947. An adventure story set in post-World War II France, featuring a glider and some secret Nazis in the mountains and the most impressive literary trick I’ve seen in a Newbery book, or indeed in pretty much any book ever. (I talk about it at more length in the review but don’t want to spoil it here.)

6. Claire Huchet Bishop's Pancakes-Paris, 1948. In post-war Paris, a young boy gets a box of pancake mix from some American soldiers, and makes pancakes for his mother and sister for Mardi Gras. That’s it! That’s the story.

7. Louise Rankin's Daughter of the Mountains, 1949. When a young Tibetan girl’s beloved dog is stolen, she chases him all the way across Tibet and into India to get him back. Super fun adventure story. No one is the least bit fazed at the idea of a girl having an adventure.

8. Jennie Lindquist's The Golden Name Day, 1956. Nancy spends a year with her Swedish-American relatives and they get up to all sorts of lovely escapades. Beautiful illustrations by Garth Williams, who you may be familiar with from the Little House series. There should be more books which are just about characters having a fantastic time.

9. Mari Sandoz's The Horsecatcher, 1957. A Cheyenne boy wants to become a horsecatcher rather than a warrior. I’m not planning a companion post to the Problem of Tomboys about Boys Who Don’t Want to Do Classic Boy Things, but if I were, this book would be on it. Fascinating evocation of our hero’s world.

10. Cynthia Rylant's A Fine White Dust, 1987. Kind of an outlier on this list, which is mostly adventure stories and people having good times stories. This one is a realistic fiction story about a boy growing up in the South who falls in love with a traveling preacher. VERY intense. EXTREMELY gay. Never admits to being gay but nonetheless one of the gayest books I’ve ever read. Very short. I read most of it in one lunch break and spent that entire lunch break internally keening because it is VERY STRESSFUL but in a good way.

Comments

[magid]

I remember The Golden Name Day! So nice, I really liked it, but also, for me, a tiny bit of “yet another story I’m never going to see myself in” given the whole saint’s day part.

[osprey_archer]

To be honest, I think that seeing oneself in a story is overrated. None of the stories on this list are about characters I can see myself in, demographically or otherwise; I like them because they give me a window onto facets of human experience that aren't my own.

[magid]

I hear that, too.

Still, when I was young, it was quite rare to have any book show any facet of my story/history. I still loved them, but it was still noticeable in a way I wouldn’t have been able to articulate at the time. Perhaps that’s why I gravitated to speculative fiction, where it wasn’t nearly as noticeable for me?

[asakiyume]

Number 3 for the win--definitely want to check that out. Number 7 sounds fun too, and Number 5--how did I miss this?! Amazing, simply amazing. But all the stories sound excellent, really.

Re: Number 9 and Boys Who Don't Want to Do Classic Boy Things, would you say there was near parity in the number of stories like that and tomboy stories? Or were there more tomboy stories? I'm doubting there were *more* of the Boys Who Don't Want (etc.) stories because I feel like there's likely a valorization of male-coded activities that mean it's more understandable/acceptable that there would be girls who wanted to do boy things ("of course that lesser being, a woman, would like to do the more interesting, important things that we males do" followed by either "of course she can't/shouldn't" or "maybe she actually can!"<--the latter more likely if a woman's writing it).

[osprey_archer]

I think you'd like all three of those books! I definitely remember discussing Daughter of the Mountains with you and sighing that there still aren't a lot of books where girls have adventures and the fact that they are A Girl doesn't become a big deal.

Re: Boys Who Don't Want to Do Classic Boy Things, the tomboy books absolutely blow this genre out of the water. There are just a few boy books of this type but tons of tomboy books in the Newberys (and I think this ratio holds true in children's literature at large). And while the tomboys may want to do boy things, their boy counterparts don't usually want to do girl things; they just want to do things that are not peak he-man stuff. Catching horses rather than becoming a warrior, for instance.

...I'm going to end up writing this post, aren't I...

[asakiyume]

You should write the post!

[sholio]

...I'm going to end up writing this post, aren't I...

Do iiiiiiiit.

[osprey_archer]

Clearly it's preordained. Shouldn't have mentioned the possibility if I expected to get out of it.

[conuly]

TBH, I assumed you only wrote it because you did intend to write it.

[philomytha]

Jane's Island! Such a fun read, and Dr von Bergen was a character made for me in a lab :-D

And I must read The Avion My Uncle Flew!

[osprey_archer]

I am never going to be able to remember Dr. von Bergen's actual name. He will always be Dr. von Stalhein to me!

I hope you like The Avion My Uncle Flew!

[lirazel]

I have not heard of a single one of these and now I'm SO excited to check out some of them! Thank you for the lovely post!

[osprey_archer]

Thank you! Happy reading!

[regshoe]

Ooh, some of these sound really interesting. *makes notes*

I feel like 1987 is very late for the 'extremely gay but never admits to the actual possibility' genre of books.

[osprey_archer]

This might be an adult vs. children's books difference. Adult books probably moved on sooner, but children's books kept up "extremely gay but never admits to the possibility" until at least 2016.

[rachelmanija]

I need to read some of these. Luckily three of the four most appealing to me (wings, planes, and dogs - alas for the fairy circus) are still in print.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, Winged Girl of Knossos, The Avion My Uncle Flew, and Daughter of the Mountain have all had attractive recent reprints! Maybe someone will get around to The Fairy Circus eventually... I ended up having to get it through Interlibrary Loan, though.

[asakiyume]

(Just put in an ILL request for Winged Girl, to be followed when I finish by Daughter of the Mountain (and then maybe the Avion one, because I need to see this One Neat Trick for myself)

[osprey_archer]

Yay! I hope you like the ones that you end up reading.

[sholio]

I have read The Avion My Uncle Flew, I think because of your post about it, actually! (And the trick it pulls off is a really neat trick.) I haven't read any of the rest of these, although I also remember the Jane's Island writeup because it sounds like entirely my thing for *cough* obvious reasons. So I will have to check some of these out!

[osprey_archer]

Oh, hooray! Yes, I love The Avion My Uncle Flew. A rip-roaring adventure AND an amazing trick literary device all in one fun postwar France package.

I hope you enjoy Jane's Island and Dr. von Stalhein Bergen if you ever read it!

[sartorias]

This is a terrific list. Some of these I read when young, others our library didn't have. Will try to find them!

[osprey_archer]

Happy reading!

[sovay]

9. Mari Sandoz's The Horsecatcher, 1957. A Cheyenne boy wants to become a horsecatcher rather than a warrior. I’m not planning a companion post to the Problem of Tomboys about Boys Who Don’t Want to Do Classic Boy Things, but if I were, this book would be on it.

I missed this one at the time and it sounds fascinating. Would also read that post.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, I think that post is a foregone conclusion at that point.

[rosemary_green]

I remember "The Avion My Uncle Flew"! Read in junior high or high school and really enjoyed it. I still have my paperback copy -- should plan to reread it.

[osprey_archer]

It's such a fun book! I hope you enjoy your reread.