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osprey_archer) wrote2023-01-20 03:11 pm
osprey_archer) wrote2023-01-20 03:11 pm
Entry tags:
Newbery Honor Books
Another batch of Newbery books! I ripped through the last few books that the library had available on ebook, as they’re supposed to stop subscribing to that particular ebook provider… sometime this year… the very uncertainty of it lit a fire under me to get it done.
Nicholas Kalashnikoff’s The Defender is set in Siberia, and focuses on a Lamut man who befriends the local mountain sheep with their magnificent curling horns. Striking for the religious/spiritual themes (Christian, but a Christianity inflected by Turgen’s traditional Lamut beliefs), which are not common in 20th century American children’s books. Possibly there was an uptick at mid-century? Certainly older doesn’t necessarily mean more religious: the 1920s Newberies show no religious themes at all.
Marguerite Henry’s Justin Morgan Had a Horse, and if you don’t read this title to the “Old MacDonald” tune, “Justin Morgan had a horse, E-I-E-I-O,” then you’re a better man than I, Gunga Din. The novel is a fictionalization of the story of the first Morgan horse (Little Bub in the book; Figure in real life), a stallion of uncertain origin who sired many foals in the early nineteenth century. Henry seizes on the Morgan horse’s uncertain parentage as a symbol of America: like the American people, here is a horse of mongrel breed, distinguished not by his breeding but his deeds!
The other two books continue this American history theme: Catherine Coblentz’s The Blue Cat of Castle Town is set in Castle Town (now Castleton) Vermont, and in fact draws heavily on Coblentz’s research on the town: all the main human characters are real historical figures, and each chapter begins with a paragraph or two from a historical description of that person.
Into this history, Coblentz introduces a blue cat, inspired by the blue cat in this intricate embroidered carpet, woven by Castle Town native Zeruah H. Guernsey. Like all blue cats, this blue cat was born to learn the river’s song and teach it to others, as only blue cats can do. He first sets about his task with zest and no little self-importance (as befits a cat! The cat characterization here is truly top notch), only to forget his song under the evil influence of the town’s wicked entrepreneur who worships speed, and find it again when he stays for a time with a carpenter who works to create lasting beauty.
Finally, I read Lois Lenski’s Indian Captive, which is based on the true story of Mary Jemison (called by the nickname Molly in the book). At the age of twelve, Jemison and her family were kidnapped by six Seneca Indians and four Frenchmen. The rest of the family was killed, but Jemison survived to be adopted by two Seneca sisters, and lived with the Seneca for the rest of her long life.
Lenski’s book hews fairly closely to Jemison’s account of her capture, although Lenski softened some of the scenes, possibly because she realized that readers might struggle to root for Molly to settle in with her new Seneca family after she’s forced to watch quietly as her abductors prepare her original family’s scalps for preservation, as occurred in real life. (In the book, Molly doesn’t know her family is dead till two years later.)
I must confess I was dreading this book on the general principle that children’s books about Indians from the 1940s are almost invariably bad. As Arthur C. Parker (a prominent archaeologist, historian, museum curator, and member of the Seneca Nation) noted in the introduction, many children’s writers in the mid-twentieth century didn’t bother to research such stories at all, but wrote “purely from imagination, filling in gaps with pre-conceived knowledge,” whereas Lenski’s entire schtick was doing massive amounts of research for all her books. She also wrote a whole series of regional stories from various parts of the United States often neglected in children’s literature.
I don’t have the knowledge to speak to the accuracy of Lenski’s research, but like Strawberry Girl (set among rural farmers in Florida), this book felt intensely researched yet oddly inert. Does the research weigh the story down? Or is it an issue of prose style? Perhaps simply a case of poor reader fit? Clearly there are readers with whom her books strike a chord: many of her books are still widely available, unlike those of many other Newbery authors from the middle of the twentieth century. It’s sobering to look at the earlier Newbery decades and note how many of these award-winning books and authors would be entirely forgotten if they didn’t happen to be on this list.
Nicholas Kalashnikoff’s The Defender is set in Siberia, and focuses on a Lamut man who befriends the local mountain sheep with their magnificent curling horns. Striking for the religious/spiritual themes (Christian, but a Christianity inflected by Turgen’s traditional Lamut beliefs), which are not common in 20th century American children’s books. Possibly there was an uptick at mid-century? Certainly older doesn’t necessarily mean more religious: the 1920s Newberies show no religious themes at all.
Marguerite Henry’s Justin Morgan Had a Horse, and if you don’t read this title to the “Old MacDonald” tune, “Justin Morgan had a horse, E-I-E-I-O,” then you’re a better man than I, Gunga Din. The novel is a fictionalization of the story of the first Morgan horse (Little Bub in the book; Figure in real life), a stallion of uncertain origin who sired many foals in the early nineteenth century. Henry seizes on the Morgan horse’s uncertain parentage as a symbol of America: like the American people, here is a horse of mongrel breed, distinguished not by his breeding but his deeds!
The other two books continue this American history theme: Catherine Coblentz’s The Blue Cat of Castle Town is set in Castle Town (now Castleton) Vermont, and in fact draws heavily on Coblentz’s research on the town: all the main human characters are real historical figures, and each chapter begins with a paragraph or two from a historical description of that person.
Into this history, Coblentz introduces a blue cat, inspired by the blue cat in this intricate embroidered carpet, woven by Castle Town native Zeruah H. Guernsey. Like all blue cats, this blue cat was born to learn the river’s song and teach it to others, as only blue cats can do. He first sets about his task with zest and no little self-importance (as befits a cat! The cat characterization here is truly top notch), only to forget his song under the evil influence of the town’s wicked entrepreneur who worships speed, and find it again when he stays for a time with a carpenter who works to create lasting beauty.
Finally, I read Lois Lenski’s Indian Captive, which is based on the true story of Mary Jemison (called by the nickname Molly in the book). At the age of twelve, Jemison and her family were kidnapped by six Seneca Indians and four Frenchmen. The rest of the family was killed, but Jemison survived to be adopted by two Seneca sisters, and lived with the Seneca for the rest of her long life.
Lenski’s book hews fairly closely to Jemison’s account of her capture, although Lenski softened some of the scenes, possibly because she realized that readers might struggle to root for Molly to settle in with her new Seneca family after she’s forced to watch quietly as her abductors prepare her original family’s scalps for preservation, as occurred in real life. (In the book, Molly doesn’t know her family is dead till two years later.)
I must confess I was dreading this book on the general principle that children’s books about Indians from the 1940s are almost invariably bad. As Arthur C. Parker (a prominent archaeologist, historian, museum curator, and member of the Seneca Nation) noted in the introduction, many children’s writers in the mid-twentieth century didn’t bother to research such stories at all, but wrote “purely from imagination, filling in gaps with pre-conceived knowledge,” whereas Lenski’s entire schtick was doing massive amounts of research for all her books. She also wrote a whole series of regional stories from various parts of the United States often neglected in children’s literature.
I don’t have the knowledge to speak to the accuracy of Lenski’s research, but like Strawberry Girl (set among rural farmers in Florida), this book felt intensely researched yet oddly inert. Does the research weigh the story down? Or is it an issue of prose style? Perhaps simply a case of poor reader fit? Clearly there are readers with whom her books strike a chord: many of her books are still widely available, unlike those of many other Newbery authors from the middle of the twentieth century. It’s sobering to look at the earlier Newbery decades and note how many of these award-winning books and authors would be entirely forgotten if they didn’t happen to be on this list.
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