Newbery Books

[osprey_archer]

Newbery books! I have been reading them, and naturally I have thoughts about them which must be shared.

First, Eric P. Kelly’s The Trumpeter of Krakow, which I expected to like, as it is an adventure story in Poland in the 1400s. Doesn’t that sound interesting and unusual? But although there are a lot of exciting happenings in this book - robberies! hypnotism! alchemy! - it just never really grabbed me. The characters never seem quite alive.

Second, Cynthia Rylant’s Missing May. I didn’t read this back during my fifth-grade Newbery medalist binge, probably because I had already read Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia and been scarred for life and had learned from it an important life lesson: assiduously avoid all folksy rural books about artistic young people who learn important lessons about Death.

(I should have remembered this lesson before reading Kate diCamillo’s The Tiger Rising. It takes place in rural Florida and one of the characters is named Sistine: the combination should have warned me right off.)

But despite the fact that Missing May is surprisingly similar to Terabithia in its broad outlines, it’s ultimately a hopeful book, an effect diametrically opposed to grim Terabithian misery. It’s a sad book - but while it notes that death is sad and may always leave you sadder, in Missing May it is still possible to move on and keep living and even be happy again after someone you love dies, because this single death has not sucked all goodness out of the world.

Two reasons for this different effect, I think: First, May’s death took place before the book began, so it isn’t meant to shock and hurt the reader. Second, and probably more important, the characters in Rylant’s Missing May are good people, rather than the kind of terrible, selfish, mean-spirited jerks who populate Paterson’s works. Leslie is perhaps the only exception in Terabitha. That probably explains why she had to die.



And finally, Betsy Byars’ Summer of the Swans, which lacks an Important Lesson about Death, but is nonetheless very much in the “rural setting with a discontented protagonist surrounded by disappointing people” mold of Jacob Have I Loved. I am beginning to think I should keep a running tab of qualities that make a book Newbery-bait. Setting it in a small town in the middle of nowhere: clearly a plus!

I’m kind of bitter that Summer of the Swans beat out Enchantress from the Stars, which is simultaneously a space opera and a fairy tale and has likeable characters and meditations on the nature of good and evil and obligation to others.

Comments

[nagasasu.livejournal.com]

Wholeheartedly agree that Enchantress was robbed. But the Newberry in general doesn't give out a lot of awards to sf.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

They really don't, which is unfortunate, because there are so many good children's fantasy and sf books.

[konstantya.livejournal.com]

I unabashedly LOVE Missing May. I first read it back in, like, 3rd grade, and while it kind of went in one ear and out the other at the time, something must have stuck, because I searched it out to reread a number of years later, and absolutely fell in love with it. Even now, I have a tendency to reread it every couple years or so. Something about the language, I think--Rylant has some really beautiful sentences, in my opinion. And, of course, like you said, there's a note of hope in all that sadness. (I read Bridge To Teribithia sometime around thirteen, and while it didn't scar me, I can't say I've ever had the urge to revisit it.)

/gush

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I think Rylant has a talent for sounding folksy without sounding quaint or laying it on to thick. I really enjoyed that in Missing May, that Summer sounds so individual (and like an individual from a very specific place). And she does have a way with words: I liked, for instance, her description of Uncle Ob's whirligigs, or Cletus's suitcase of pictures.

Maybe it's one of those books like Charlotte's Web that is good when you're young, but even better when you get older?

I think I found Terabithia so upsetting because I expected it to be one of my favorite kinds of books - either "friends invent imaginary world" or "friends find door to magical world," I wasn't picky which.

And then...it so is not that.

[konstantya.livejournal.com]

I think you might be right on the folksy front. I never thought to put a word/name to that style, but it can get very annoying if overdone. Especially when it's used as an excuse for substance.

Speaking of Charlotte's Web, I should reread it, just to see if that's true. I read it once, way back as a kid, and watched the animated film numerous times (might be a contributing factor as to why I find spiders so cute?), and it would be neat to revisit it, if only for the nostalgia.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I reread Charlotte's Web a year or two ago, and for me at least it was totally true that it was even better as an adult.

On the other hand, I found it even more irritating that Fern gave up on the talking animals to moon over some dopey boy at the fair. Because talking animals.

And also she was only eight, it seemed awfully young to let romance overshadow all over aspects of her life.

[c-maxx.livejournal.com]

Ha! The Trumpeter of Krakow!! Read that back before the last ice age. But I do recall it was quite an adventure.

May have to pick it up again, and now the kids are getting old enough to read to, tho I'm not sure they are up to a real novel yet; we at still at Dr. Suess and such...

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

The Trumpeter of Krakow might be a little long for a first foray into chapter books. But then again, my mother read me all of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books when I was pretty young, and they're pretty long, so maybe length doesn't matter so much? At least for a reading-aloud book.

When I first learned to read, I loved Cynthia Rylant's Mr. Putter and Tabby series. They're technically chapter books, but the chapters are very short, so they weren't frustrating at all to my first-grade self.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I quite agree with you about Enchantress from the Stars versus Summer of the Swans--but I suspect the Newbery folks looked askance at space opera (and yet, they do sometimes pick fantasy and science fantasy, so…)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

There's definitely a trend toward historical and realistic fiction in the Newbery Award winners, which has changed somewhat in the last ~40 years, but not that much. But Enchantress has endured well even without winning, so that's something, at least.