Newbery Honor Books of 1928
Dec. 5th, 2022 07:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhen I posted about Thistle and Thyme, luzula noted that it was on archive.org, and in this way I realized that the Internet Archive/Open Library (they are related in some arcane way) hosts MANY Newbery books, which has allowed me to push through the Newbery Honor books of 1928.
Specifically, it has Ella Young’s The Wonder-Smith and His Son, a collection of Irish folk tales about the Wonder Smith (mostly called the Gubbaun Saor within the book) and… well, actually much more about his daughter Aunya than his son; Aunya is the clever one who is always solving riddles and saving the day, while the son doesn’t even get a name.
After Thistle and Thyme I was quite looking forward to more folk stories, but unfortunately I didn’t enjoy the style of The Wonder-Smith and His Son nearly as much: I found the stories hard to follow, and many of them end abruptly. My impression is that Young set them down exactly as she heard them, which is admirable in its way, but not necessarily satisfying as a literary experience.
The Internet Archive doesn’t have Caroline Snedeker’s Downright Dencey, but as Snedeker was an Indiana writer (a descendent of the founders of the utopian community at New Harmony, in fact!), I ran the book to ground at the Indiana State Library.
This story takes place in Nantucket in the early 19th century, a fascinating setting beautifully realized. Dionis (Dencey) Coffin is a daughter of one of the most prominent Quaker families on the island; Sammy Jetsam is a foul-mouthed, bad-tempered foundling boy, given the name Jetsam because he washed ashore after a shipwreck, more or less. (I fully expected him to turn out to be the son of a stalwart whaling captain, if not a full-blown aristocrat, but his parentage remains a mystery to the end.)
Goaded by her classmates and Jetsam’s own rotten behavior, Dencey hurls a rock at Jetsam. Soon after, she’s overcome by remorse, and seeks him out to beg his forgiveness - only for Jetsam, realizing that he has Dencey over a barrel, to refuse to grant it. He will forgive her, he announces, only if she teaches him how to read! For Jetsam has never had the opportunity to learn, having gotten nothing but abuse from his guardian (who might be his real mother) Injun Jill.
Yes, I know. I know.
Do Dencey and Jetsam fall in love? Well, he was a boy, she was a girl, so… No, that’s unfair, and really undersells the thorniness of their relationship, the almost Renaultian vibe of a love affair where one party falls in love and the other succumbs to compassion. “Yet, as she ran, there came upon her again that sense of belonging to Jetsam - the terrible, intimate responsibility for him. She could not tell whether it was intense gladness or intense sorrow.”
luzula noted that it was on archive.org, and in this way I realized that the Internet Archive/Open Library (they are related in some arcane way) hosts MANY Newbery books, which has allowed me to push through the Newbery Honor books of 1928. Specifically, it has Ella Young’s The Wonder-Smith and His Son, a collection of Irish folk tales about the Wonder Smith (mostly called the Gubbaun Saor within the book) and… well, actually much more about his daughter Aunya than his son; Aunya is the clever one who is always solving riddles and saving the day, while the son doesn’t even get a name.
After Thistle and Thyme I was quite looking forward to more folk stories, but unfortunately I didn’t enjoy the style of The Wonder-Smith and His Son nearly as much: I found the stories hard to follow, and many of them end abruptly. My impression is that Young set them down exactly as she heard them, which is admirable in its way, but not necessarily satisfying as a literary experience.
The Internet Archive doesn’t have Caroline Snedeker’s Downright Dencey, but as Snedeker was an Indiana writer (a descendent of the founders of the utopian community at New Harmony, in fact!), I ran the book to ground at the Indiana State Library.
This story takes place in Nantucket in the early 19th century, a fascinating setting beautifully realized. Dionis (Dencey) Coffin is a daughter of one of the most prominent Quaker families on the island; Sammy Jetsam is a foul-mouthed, bad-tempered foundling boy, given the name Jetsam because he washed ashore after a shipwreck, more or less. (I fully expected him to turn out to be the son of a stalwart whaling captain, if not a full-blown aristocrat, but his parentage remains a mystery to the end.)
Goaded by her classmates and Jetsam’s own rotten behavior, Dencey hurls a rock at Jetsam. Soon after, she’s overcome by remorse, and seeks him out to beg his forgiveness - only for Jetsam, realizing that he has Dencey over a barrel, to refuse to grant it. He will forgive her, he announces, only if she teaches him how to read! For Jetsam has never had the opportunity to learn, having gotten nothing but abuse from his guardian (who might be his real mother) Injun Jill.
Yes, I know. I know.
Do Dencey and Jetsam fall in love? Well, he was a boy, she was a girl, so… No, that’s unfair, and really undersells the thorniness of their relationship, the almost Renaultian vibe of a love affair where one party falls in love and the other succumbs to compassion. “Yet, as she ran, there came upon her again that sense of belonging to Jetsam - the terrible, intimate responsibility for him. She could not tell whether it was intense gladness or intense sorrow.”
