Entry tags:
Newbery Books + musings on quality
A couple more Newbery books, both of which I feel bafflingly indifferent to. An award-winning book ought to be quality enough that you don’t forget all the characters’ names three days after you read it, don’t you think?
(Actually I have a theory about this. One of the signs of a great book is its ability to inspire feeling, which means that great books are often inherently polarizing - people love them or loathe them. Therefore, often the best books only get honorable mentions for awards, because people feel too strongly about them to compromise.)
Even given this theory of quality, however, I am at a loss to explain why Emily Cheney Neville’s It’s Like This, Cat won anything; I kept forgetting the characters’ names as I read. Bafflingly, this beat Sterling North’s Rascal for the medal in 1964, and I’ve got to say, Rascal got robbed.
It’s Like This, Cat has a sort of Catcher in the Rye-lite feel to it: the protagonist is a disaffected youth who shares with Holden Caulfield the peculiar tendency to spell crummy “crumby.” I guess the Newbery committee must have read it and concluded that its pervasive slanginess made it Relevant to Today’s Youth.
I would love, incidentally, to know how Today’s Youth reacted to this book back in the sixties and seventies. I don’t suppose any of you read it then? Maybe it is asking too much to hope that anyone could remember it, though.
I don’t even hate It’s Like This, Cat: it’s too slight to inspire that much feeling.
Also Monica Shannon’s Dobry, about a peasant boy (named Dobry) in Bulgaria who becomes an artist. It reminds me of Rosemary Sutcliff’s Sun Horse, Moon Horse, only Sutcliff did it better. Dobry’s sculptures may live, but Dobry himself, not so much.
Therefore, rather than review Dobry, I will share with you a story of Bulgaria that my Bulgarian college roommate Slavena shared with me, about why Bulgarians nod to say “no.”
When the Ottomans invaded Bulgaria, one of the generals caught sight of a beautiful village girl. He sent his men to bring her to him, and he said, “Will you marry me?”
“No,” she said.
He took out his sword and put its point to her throat, close enough to bite the skin as she breathed. “You'll marry me now,” he ordered her.
“No,” she said; and as she spoke, she nodded her head, so that she impaled her throat on his sword.
And that is why Bulgarians nod to say no.
(Actually I have a theory about this. One of the signs of a great book is its ability to inspire feeling, which means that great books are often inherently polarizing - people love them or loathe them. Therefore, often the best books only get honorable mentions for awards, because people feel too strongly about them to compromise.)
Even given this theory of quality, however, I am at a loss to explain why Emily Cheney Neville’s It’s Like This, Cat won anything; I kept forgetting the characters’ names as I read. Bafflingly, this beat Sterling North’s Rascal for the medal in 1964, and I’ve got to say, Rascal got robbed.
It’s Like This, Cat has a sort of Catcher in the Rye-lite feel to it: the protagonist is a disaffected youth who shares with Holden Caulfield the peculiar tendency to spell crummy “crumby.” I guess the Newbery committee must have read it and concluded that its pervasive slanginess made it Relevant to Today’s Youth.
I would love, incidentally, to know how Today’s Youth reacted to this book back in the sixties and seventies. I don’t suppose any of you read it then? Maybe it is asking too much to hope that anyone could remember it, though.
I don’t even hate It’s Like This, Cat: it’s too slight to inspire that much feeling.
Also Monica Shannon’s Dobry, about a peasant boy (named Dobry) in Bulgaria who becomes an artist. It reminds me of Rosemary Sutcliff’s Sun Horse, Moon Horse, only Sutcliff did it better. Dobry’s sculptures may live, but Dobry himself, not so much.
Therefore, rather than review Dobry, I will share with you a story of Bulgaria that my Bulgarian college roommate Slavena shared with me, about why Bulgarians nod to say “no.”
When the Ottomans invaded Bulgaria, one of the generals caught sight of a beautiful village girl. He sent his men to bring her to him, and he said, “Will you marry me?”
“No,” she said.
He took out his sword and put its point to her throat, close enough to bite the skin as she breathed. “You'll marry me now,” he ordered her.
“No,” she said; and as she spoke, she nodded her head, so that she impaled her throat on his sword.
And that is why Bulgarians nod to say no.