Death Comes to the Newberies
Sep. 22nd, 2013 06:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerOne 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.
I read it in fifth grade and have no plans to reread it ever, so my memory may be hazy, but I am pretty sure that nothing happy happens in Out of the Dust.
The heroine is Billie Jo. Her parents wanted and expected a boy and couldn’t get over their disappointment enough to a) give her a girl’s name, or b) at least not tell her that they called her Billie Jo because they were totally sad about her femaleness. She lives somewhere in the Dust Bowl during the Depression, so her farm is basically blowing away. The only source of joy in her life is playing the piano.
But then! But then! Someone leaves a can of kerosene on the stove. The kerosene catches fire! Billie Jo picks it up in her bare hands and makes to throw it out the door! Except she accidentally throws it on her mother!!!! Her mother then spends a few days dying in terrible agony. Meanwhile, Billie Jo’s father drinks himself sick in the tavern, and Billie Jo sits by her mother’s bedside, her own hands so burned that she's unable to give her mother water as she dies in terrible dehydrated agony.
Indeed, Billie Jo's hands are so badly burnt that she loses her sole source of joy, playing the piano! Miserably depressed by grief and guilt, Billie Jo hops a train, which is full of similarly depressed and homeless people.
After this my memory gets hazy. I think Billie Jo decides that she can be miserable in more comfort at her house instead of on the train, and goes home, and then the author attempts to give her sort of a hopeful ending. But the hope was so much less potent than all the MISERY AND DESPAIR that came before that I have forgotten.
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.
I read it in fifth grade and have no plans to reread it ever, so my memory may be hazy, but I am pretty sure that nothing happy happens in Out of the Dust.
The heroine is Billie Jo. Her parents wanted and expected a boy and couldn’t get over their disappointment enough to a) give her a girl’s name, or b) at least not tell her that they called her Billie Jo because they were totally sad about her femaleness. She lives somewhere in the Dust Bowl during the Depression, so her farm is basically blowing away. The only source of joy in her life is playing the piano.
But then! But then! Someone leaves a can of kerosene on the stove. The kerosene catches fire! Billie Jo picks it up in her bare hands and makes to throw it out the door! Except she accidentally throws it on her mother!!!! Her mother then spends a few days dying in terrible agony. Meanwhile, Billie Jo’s father drinks himself sick in the tavern, and Billie Jo sits by her mother’s bedside, her own hands so burned that she's unable to give her mother water as she dies in terrible dehydrated agony.
Indeed, Billie Jo's hands are so badly burnt that she loses her sole source of joy, playing the piano! Miserably depressed by grief and guilt, Billie Jo hops a train, which is full of similarly depressed and homeless people.
After this my memory gets hazy. I think Billie Jo decides that she can be miserable in more comfort at her house instead of on the train, and goes home, and then the author attempts to give her sort of a hopeful ending. But the hope was so much less potent than all the MISERY AND DESPAIR that came before that I have forgotten.
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
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Date: 2013-09-22 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-22 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-22 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-23 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-22 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-22 11:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-23 12:00 am (UTC)I honestly think that is the most depressing book ever written. Also, it is in verse.
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Date: 2013-09-23 12:07 am (UTC)Ever since, I have flinched away from all novels in verse, on the grounds that they too are probably full of misery and suffering. Although probably there is a book out there to prove me wrong.
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Date: 2013-09-23 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-23 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-23 08:03 pm (UTC)It's about a girl who comes over as one of the Vietnamese boat people, near the end of the Vietnam War, and ends up in Alabama.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-24 01:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-23 03:39 am (UTC)