I honestly think the PAIN AND AGONY side of the Newbery and other kids' awards gets somewhat exaggerated, and that distorts how many good and non-traumatic books actually get nominated, because of course everyone remembers the howlers. (For the record: Old Yeller was beaten out by something called Miracles on Maple Hill, lol.) But at least Back In My Day, she wheezes, it was also a surefire way to get books into school libraries ("It's award-winning!") that weren't just from the perspective of white boys, and the Newbery label was definitely how I encountered books like Blue Willow, Strawberry Girl, Island of the Blue Dolphins (okay, very whumpy), and Roll of Thunder and Sing Down the Moon, too. There's also a definite influence from the "problem books" of the sixties and seventies where the book had to be structured around A Difficulty, To Be Overcome (a lot of Judy Blume is like this). And the idea that tragedy is more Serious and Important than the comic or the everyday, and that any serious take on an issue has to be depressing. And so on.
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Date: 2021-09-07 11:38 pm (UTC)//not sure where I was going, need more coffee