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Newbery Favorites
Sep. 28th, 2013 09:07 amOne last Newbery post, and then I’m done posting about the Newbery Award - at least till they pick the 2014 winner. This time, my theme is “My Favorite Newbery Winners.”
...it turns out that I’ve already written reviews of all of these already. Still, it’s good to have them gathered in one place! Also I’ve tried to be selective, because if I listed everything (Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH! Dead End in Norvelt!) that I enjoyed (A Single Shard! Caddie Woodlawn! Ginger Pye!) then the list would be really quite long.
As a general rule, I’ve tended to enjoy the more recent books more. I don’t think this reflects a change in quality per se, just that writing styles change over time. Still, some of my favorites were older books...
First, the books that I read as a child.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare. Generally speaking, I was firmly anti-romance as a child, but Nat and Kit’s verbal sparring (and Kit’s general disastrous impulsiveness - yes, Kit, teach the Puritan children at your dame school to act out Bible stories! Bring the theater to New England!) was so charming that I loved them despite myself.
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E. L. Konigsburg. Because who doesn’t want to run away and live in a museum for a week? That would be totally awesome.
Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry. I took a Spanish class the summer after second grade, and the teacher handed out copies of this book (in English) as prizes. I was the youngest student in the class and never won anything, so he invented a job for me reorganizing a bookshelf purely so he could give me a copy.
I proceeded to read it more or less to death. This book has everything: friendship, history, meditations on the nature of good and evil - even a fairy tale retelling.
And second, the books that I read as part of my project this summer.
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village, by Laura Amy Schlitz. Have I plugged this book enough yet? It’s far and away my favorite of the Newbery books that I read this summer. The poems are spare and clear, each line packed with story and with history.
The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate. Because the narrator is a gorilla, and he has an elephant friend - in fact, two elephant friends! - and I love elephants. And, more generally, it’s an interesting meditation on the way that we treat animals.
...it turns out that I’ve already written reviews of all of these already. Still, it’s good to have them gathered in one place! Also I’ve tried to be selective, because if I listed everything (Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH! Dead End in Norvelt!) that I enjoyed (A Single Shard! Caddie Woodlawn! Ginger Pye!) then the list would be really quite long.
As a general rule, I’ve tended to enjoy the more recent books more. I don’t think this reflects a change in quality per se, just that writing styles change over time. Still, some of my favorites were older books...
First, the books that I read as a child.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare. Generally speaking, I was firmly anti-romance as a child, but Nat and Kit’s verbal sparring (and Kit’s general disastrous impulsiveness - yes, Kit, teach the Puritan children at your dame school to act out Bible stories! Bring the theater to New England!) was so charming that I loved them despite myself.
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E. L. Konigsburg. Because who doesn’t want to run away and live in a museum for a week? That would be totally awesome.
Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry. I took a Spanish class the summer after second grade, and the teacher handed out copies of this book (in English) as prizes. I was the youngest student in the class and never won anything, so he invented a job for me reorganizing a bookshelf purely so he could give me a copy.
I proceeded to read it more or less to death. This book has everything: friendship, history, meditations on the nature of good and evil - even a fairy tale retelling.
And second, the books that I read as part of my project this summer.
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village, by Laura Amy Schlitz. Have I plugged this book enough yet? It’s far and away my favorite of the Newbery books that I read this summer. The poems are spare and clear, each line packed with story and with history.
The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate. Because the narrator is a gorilla, and he has an elephant friend - in fact, two elephant friends! - and I love elephants. And, more generally, it’s an interesting meditation on the way that we treat animals.
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