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In under the wire, I have completed the Newbery Honor books of the 1940s! *spikes football*
Genevieve Foster’s Abraham Lincoln’s World, like her earlier book George Washington’s World, is not, as you might imagine from the title, about daily life in the immediate environs of the future president in question, but about what was happening all around the world during his lifetime. In Lincoln’s case: Steamships were being invented! Italy was being united! Canada was fretting over whether the United States was maybe going to invade, since it had this whole standing army left over from the Civil War and everything, and after all it wasn’t that long ago that the US conquered half of Mexico…
A very lively read. Foster can’t resist going a bit beyond Lincoln’s death to touch on the endings of the various ongoing sagas: the unification of Italy, the rise and fall of Napoleon III, the execution of emperor Maximilian I of Mexico by firing squad. Then she circles back to Lincoln’s own death, ending with the observation, “only then could the people of Abraham Lincoln’s world realize how great he was. He was too tall when he walked beside them.”
Stephen W. Meader’s Boy with a Pack is a lively historical novel, studded with adventures as a fruitcake is studded with plums. Our hero, seventeen-year-old Bill, has just set out from his Connecticut home with a pack of notions on his back. He aims to walk out west, peddling to support himself as he sees the world.
He sees a bit of life indeed! This book starts out Boy Meets Dog, continues to Boy Meets Girl, saunters over to Boy Meets Horse, and then the Horse has a delightful high-stepping foal, the son of a horse who won an exciting race earlier in the book! In between assembling this ragtag band, Bill narrowly escapes robbery (twice), nearly gets mauled by a bear before a convenient trapper saves him, and helps an escaped slave along the Underground Railroad. Not bad for a summer’s work!
And finally, Eleanore M. Jewett’s The Hidden Treasure of Glaston, which is a stealth Arthurian riff! (Okay, maybe not so stealth given the Arthurian connections of Glastonbury, but it surprised me.) In the twelfth century, young Hugh and his best friend Dickon discover a secret treasure chamber in a cave under the abbey, and set out on a hunt for the Holy Grail that hasn’t been seen since the mythical days of Camelot.
These two novels are both fine, but I didn’t find either of them very memorable; the details are already slipping out of my mind.
And that’s all the Newbery books of the 1940s! Although I’d like to read the 2023 winners before 2024 dawns, I may wait on diving into the 1930s books until 2024? Or at least until after my road trip. Which begins tomorrow!
Genevieve Foster’s Abraham Lincoln’s World, like her earlier book George Washington’s World, is not, as you might imagine from the title, about daily life in the immediate environs of the future president in question, but about what was happening all around the world during his lifetime. In Lincoln’s case: Steamships were being invented! Italy was being united! Canada was fretting over whether the United States was maybe going to invade, since it had this whole standing army left over from the Civil War and everything, and after all it wasn’t that long ago that the US conquered half of Mexico…
A very lively read. Foster can’t resist going a bit beyond Lincoln’s death to touch on the endings of the various ongoing sagas: the unification of Italy, the rise and fall of Napoleon III, the execution of emperor Maximilian I of Mexico by firing squad. Then she circles back to Lincoln’s own death, ending with the observation, “only then could the people of Abraham Lincoln’s world realize how great he was. He was too tall when he walked beside them.”
Stephen W. Meader’s Boy with a Pack is a lively historical novel, studded with adventures as a fruitcake is studded with plums. Our hero, seventeen-year-old Bill, has just set out from his Connecticut home with a pack of notions on his back. He aims to walk out west, peddling to support himself as he sees the world.
He sees a bit of life indeed! This book starts out Boy Meets Dog, continues to Boy Meets Girl, saunters over to Boy Meets Horse, and then the Horse has a delightful high-stepping foal, the son of a horse who won an exciting race earlier in the book! In between assembling this ragtag band, Bill narrowly escapes robbery (twice), nearly gets mauled by a bear before a convenient trapper saves him, and helps an escaped slave along the Underground Railroad. Not bad for a summer’s work!
And finally, Eleanore M. Jewett’s The Hidden Treasure of Glaston, which is a stealth Arthurian riff! (Okay, maybe not so stealth given the Arthurian connections of Glastonbury, but it surprised me.) In the twelfth century, young Hugh and his best friend Dickon discover a secret treasure chamber in a cave under the abbey, and set out on a hunt for the Holy Grail that hasn’t been seen since the mythical days of Camelot.
These two novels are both fine, but I didn’t find either of them very memorable; the details are already slipping out of my mind.
And that’s all the Newbery books of the 1940s! Although I’d like to read the 2023 winners before 2024 dawns, I may wait on diving into the 1930s books until 2024? Or at least until after my road trip. Which begins tomorrow!
