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Death Comes to the Newberies
One of my concerns when starting the Newbery project was that it was going to be a super depressing reading list, Newbery books being famously deathtastic. However, it seems that the Newbery committee only fell in love with All Death, All the Time during the 1990s, during which decade three of the winning books were literally all about death - Missing May, Walk Two Moons, and Out of the Dust
And Out of the Dust is just generally one of the most depressing books of all time. ( Let me summarize this book to you in all its glorious misery, it may be even more depressing than Kate diCamillo's The Tiger Rising )
Books that take Death as a major theme: 12
And then I broke down the death books into categories.
Death in Warfare: 3 (Johnny Tremain, Rifles for Watie, Moon Over Manifest)
Super Depressing Books about Death: 4 (Bridge to Terabithia, Walk Two Moons, Out of the Dust, Kira-Kira)
Surprisingly Not-Depressing Books about Death: 3 (Missing May, The Graveyard Book, Dead End in Norvelt)
Books about Death whose misery quotient I cannot now recall: 1 (Roller Skates)
Books Where a Pet Dies: 1 (Sounder)
Billie Jo’s unfortunate kerosene accident also reminded me of another Newbery theme, which turns out to be only slightly less pervasive than death: books that take disability as a major theme. There are ten of them, three with a disabled protagonist and seven with an important disabled secondary character.
Protagonists
Johnny Tremain: hero burns his hand and can no longer work as silversmith
The Door in the Wall: hero loses most use of his legs to unnamed ailment
Out of the Dust: heroine burns her hands with kerosene. What is it with the Newberys and people burning their hands?
Secondary characters
Miracles on Maple Hill: father with severe PTSD from World War II
The Bronze Bow: sister with - agoraphobia? PTSD? It’s set in ancient Israel under Roman occupation, we don’t get an exact diagnosis. She was traumatized after seeing a crucifixion as a small child.
Summer of the Swans: brother with intellectual disabilities
The View from Saturday: teacher with wheelchair
A Single Shard: foster father with one leg (or possibly only one usable leg, I was never quite clear on this)
When You Reach Me: friend with epilepsy
Dead End in Norvelt: elderly friend with terrible arthritis
And Out of the Dust is just generally one of the most depressing books of all time. ( Let me summarize this book to you in all its glorious misery, it may be even more depressing than Kate diCamillo's The Tiger Rising )
Books that take Death as a major theme: 12
And then I broke down the death books into categories.
Death in Warfare: 3 (Johnny Tremain, Rifles for Watie, Moon Over Manifest)
Super Depressing Books about Death: 4 (Bridge to Terabithia, Walk Two Moons, Out of the Dust, Kira-Kira)
Surprisingly Not-Depressing Books about Death: 3 (Missing May, The Graveyard Book, Dead End in Norvelt)
Books about Death whose misery quotient I cannot now recall: 1 (Roller Skates)
Books Where a Pet Dies: 1 (Sounder)
Billie Jo’s unfortunate kerosene accident also reminded me of another Newbery theme, which turns out to be only slightly less pervasive than death: books that take disability as a major theme. There are ten of them, three with a disabled protagonist and seven with an important disabled secondary character.
Protagonists
Johnny Tremain: hero burns his hand and can no longer work as silversmith
The Door in the Wall: hero loses most use of his legs to unnamed ailment
Out of the Dust: heroine burns her hands with kerosene. What is it with the Newberys and people burning their hands?
Secondary characters
Miracles on Maple Hill: father with severe PTSD from World War II
The Bronze Bow: sister with - agoraphobia? PTSD? It’s set in ancient Israel under Roman occupation, we don’t get an exact diagnosis. She was traumatized after seeing a crucifixion as a small child.
Summer of the Swans: brother with intellectual disabilities
The View from Saturday: teacher with wheelchair
A Single Shard: foster father with one leg (or possibly only one usable leg, I was never quite clear on this)
When You Reach Me: friend with epilepsy
Dead End in Norvelt: elderly friend with terrible arthritis