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Article Review
Of the book titles listed in the assigned article, which one speaks directly to you?  Highlight in your response why this book sounds interesting.  Are there any books in the article that you would not care to read and why?  Reflect on the article and the books selected and read in your response below.

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My quest to track down the Newbery began a long way from this country. I had been asked to speak at the Mubarak Library in Cairo to a group of Egyptian writers on "The Heartbeat of Children's Literature." A gentleman named Yacoub el-Sharoni, one of Egypt's most famous writers of children's books, was waiting for me after the program: "You have in your country a Newbery award," he said in his halting English. "What in your opinion is at the heart of such an award? What makes a Newbery book different?"

It reminded me of a librarian friend who once said to me, "I can always tell a Newbery contender. There is just something about one." There was that hint again at something unique, almost mysterious, about a Newbery winner.

A swim of Newbery Medal winners passed in front of me: From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Bridge to Terabithia, Maniac Magee, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Holes, Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Tale of Despereaux, Sounder, Missing May, A Single Shard - to name only a few.

But where to begin? I scratched the answer out that night in the notebook that I keep by the side of any bed I sleep in: "At the heart of every Newbery is a remarkable character," I wrote.

Not just a character who carries the weight of story, but a character original in voice, in spirit, in ideas, perhaps even in looks! Certainly original in imagination.

"What a character!" we often say about someone totally original, the phrase laden with both admiration and uneasiness. In the Newbery Honor-winning The Great Gilly Hopkins, Gilly (or Galadriel, as she prefers to be called), entering her third foster home in three years, makes us more than a little uneasy. She is fresh, sassy, stubborn, guarded. The social worker begs her, "Gilly, give Maime Trotter [her new foster mother] half a chance, OK? She's really a nice person." But Gilly is done with nice. "Nobody wants to tangle with the great Galadriel Hopkins. I am too clever and too hard to manage." She says to herself, "Here I come, Maime baby, ready or not." What a character!

Or Summer in Missing May, Cynthia Rylant's Newbery winner, who is in some ways like Gilly. An orphan, too, Summer is sent to live with Aunt May and Uncle Ob in their West Virginia trailer home after her mother dies. But her attitude is totally different.

Home was, still is, a rusty old trailer stuck on the face of a mountain in Deep Water, in the heart of Fayette County. It looked to me, the first time, like a toy that God had been playing with and accidentally dropped out of heaven. Down and down and down it came and landed, thunk, on this mountain, sort of cockeyed and shaky and grateful to be all in one piece.

These words tell us as much about Summer as they do Ob and May's trailer, because Rylant didn't give you a description of Summer's character; no, she gave you Summer herself, thinking, remembering, dreaming. Starting out, then, the reader knows a sweet girl, a girl who knows what it is like to be loved, a girl capable of loving and a girl who is grateful to be living where she's living. About Summer, you might whisper, What a character.

One of my all-time favorite Newbery characters is Stanley Yelnats in Louis Sachar's Holes, who is just plain bad-luck Charlie, and he knows why. It is because of his "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather" who had stolen a pig from a gypsy who then put a curse on him and all his family. Not that he and his family believe in curses. Even so, Stanley blames his pig-stealing great-great-grandfather for just about everything. No wonder, then, that when a pair of sneakers falls on Stanley from the sky, he decides to take them home. How could he know that they were the famous baseball player Clyde Livingston's stolen sneakers? But the police know; Stanley is judged guilty; and off he goes to Camp Green Lake where, as punishment, he is ordered to dig holes - five feet deep and five feet across - all day, every day, in the desert sun. That darn "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather" and his curse!

There is nothing else to say about Stanley except, with exasperation and some amazement, What a character!

I was able to have tea with Yacoub el-Sharoni the day after my Cairo speech and share my thoughts about Newbery characters with him. I knew I was only scraping the surface. It was walking through the streets of Cairo afterward that I said to myself: It's not enough. It's only the beginning. Characters as rich as Gilly and Summer and Stanley need the right stage.

And that is my second certainty. The stage of a Newbery book is key. It has to be right for the hero or heroine, because it is his or her world. Yes, as in Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage." Gilly's world is the quirky home of Maime Trotter, which she totally disrupts in her determined search for her mother. Tree-ear of Linda Sue Park's A Single Shard has the twelfth-century world of a nascent Korea as his stage. Summer performs in the isolated West Virginia mountain world of May and Ob. Avi's Crispin comes alive in a feudal fourteenth-century English world where lords still rule the land and where serfs of all ages - including Crispin - do their bidding. Brian in Gary Paulsen's Newbery Honor book Hatchet is an ordinary kid flying in a small plane to meet his recently divorced father when it goes down, stranding Brian in the Canadian wilderness, his stage!

Rich, textured, fascinating worlds - stages on which wonderfully original characters can play. And live out their usually most unusual lives.

Why, place can be so integral to the story that it becomes a character in its own right! Newbery authors seem to know this secret.

And richly wrought, place can also assure the reader of the authenticity of the story. Consider the detail of the castle in The Tale of Despereaux; the detail in the hard-core cityscape of Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee; the windswept prairie of Patricia MacLachlan's Sarah, Plain and Tall; the three trailers in Susan Patron's The Higher Power of Lucky, soldered together so tightly that "not even a mouse would be able to find a crack or an opening anywhere."

Despereaux, a most particular mouse with an artist's sensibility and an Arthurian heart, lives in a most peculiar castle where Chiaroscuro the rat is allowed to rule a nether world and where a queen is so smitten with soup that she insists that it be served at every meal.

[Despereaux] spent his days as he wanted: He wandered through the rooms of the castle, staring dreamily at the light streaming in through the stained-glass windows. He went to the library and read over and over again the story of the fair maiden and the knight who rescued her. And he discovered, finally, the source of the honey-sweet sound.

The sound was music.

The sound was King Phillip playing his guitar and singing to his daughter, the Princess Pea, every night before she fell asleep...

"Oh," [Despereaux] said, "it sounds like heaven. It smells like honey."

Did Kate DiCamillo leave her hero behind in order to describe so authentically the parts and contents of her wonderfully wacky castle? Not at all. She wove her hero into the place; both hero and castle rising before us, as the brave little mouse discovers "that gilded thing": music. You get to know both hero and place at the same time.

Character and place are inextricably linked in a Newbery book. However, I have created a still life. An interesting character, a fascinating stage on which the hero can act - but unacceptably a still life. Because a major characteristic of a Newbery winner is that it moves, sometimes exquisitely. The author meets the character somewhere and sends her, flies her, lets her run, from here to there. At the beginning the hero may be an orphan, an outsider, adrift, alone - pick the nowhere spot the hero finds himself in - but invariably we feel the wind in the wondrous wings of Newbery characters as they move through their story.

I like the image of a story arc. Perhaps because it reminds me of a character leaping, through time and space, through tests of one kind or another, taking on the challenges of his or her story in arcs of internal and external action, finally arriving at the highest (or nearly highest) point in the arc, the climax.

I think of Salamanca in Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons searching nationwide for her mother. Tree-ear in A Single Shard determined to take his master's delicate, perfect piece of pottery to Songdo, encountering robbers who break it, but retrieving the single shard and moving courageously to the ancient city. I think of Beetle in Karen Cushman's The Midwife's Apprentice, who is determined to find her way up and out of the isolated, lonely, smelly dung heap into the world.

Arcs of action. Powerful beginnings that draw a line in the sand for the character, rising middles created by a hero or heroine faced with more and more demanding choices, and turning-points and climaxes, moments of decision, that at their peaks may well contain "the catch in the breath" that becomes something like reality itself. A storytelling arc. But not just through outer action: not just a run to Songdo, or delivering a baby. Not just hijacking the water truck and escaping Camp Green Lake. This is all outside action, physical action, essential and fascinating, and driving the reader through the pages.

But at a great book's heart is what Aristotle in his Poetics called praxis. Something driving the character like an arrow: a question, a need, an obsession. Gilly Hopkins obsessively wanting not just a home but a mother. Summer passionately wanting Aunt May, surrogate mother, to come back from the dead. Despereaux determined to woo and win the Princess Pea, as unlikely as that is. Abilene Tucker in Clare Vanderpool's Moon Over Manifest desperately trying to understand why her rail-riding father left her alone in Manifest, Kansas.

No question: one of the surest marks of a Newbery is its last moments of story. Last scenes. I think of Sounder by William H. Armstrong. Seeing his master whom he adored, mistakenly and cruelly imprisoned, enduring the months he is gone, then, finally, seeing that master come home:

Suddenly the voice of the great coon hound broke the sultry August deadness. The dog dashed along the road, leaving three-pointed clouds of red dust to settle back to earth behind him. The mighty voice rolled out upon the valley, each flutelike bark echoing from slope to slope...

Sounder was a young dog again. His voice was the same mellow sound that had ridden the November breeze from the lowlands to the hills. The boy and his mother looked at each other. The catbird stopped her fussing in the wilted lilac bush. On three legs, the dog moved with the same lightning speed that had carried him to the throat of a grounded raccoon.

Sounder's master had come home.

Armstrong pulled out all the stops. In his simplicity, he used images that were all his own, like "three-pointed clouds of red dust" and "flutelike bark echoing from slope to slope."And he used authentic dialogue that we could believe. "Lord's mercy! Dog days done made him mad." And he used poetry when he needed it: "His voice was the same mellow sound . . . the catbird stopped her fussing in the wilted lilac bush." Because poetry in prose is how a writer gets to the heart, and those Newbery writers know it.

What is it about this scene and scenes like it? Jonas escaping downhill on a sled in Lois Lowry's The Giver, Lucky in The Higher Power of Lucky facing the memorial service with the urn of her mother's ashes, Palmer in Jerry Spinelli's Newbery honor book Wringer, looking up into the sky, watching, heart beating, as his pet pigeon Nipper floats down toward him into the silvery-clouds of the killing field.

Newbery authors need everything they have to create moments like these: they need rich original images, they need the beat of their own hearts, they need their senses - what they see and smell, what they hear, what they think. Perhaps now you see why I am so comfortable with the word stage. Because as surely as a playwright comes to the end of his play, looking for the rhythms, the lighting and pacing, the magnitude of his or her last moments, a writer does the same.

There is something about a Newbery, the librarian said. "Just something about it."

I discovered that the American embassy in Cairo has translated almost twenty-five years of Newbery novels for Egyptian children. It suddenly became clear to me why. Not out of arrogance - showing off our good books to those "less fortunate" Egyptians; not to provide facts about life in the United States. I am convinced that the embassy selected these books because they are powerful stories of humanity behaving humanly on powerful stages. It is our culture at its best that we want to share.

Good Newbery Novels

Sounder (Harper & Row, 1969) by William H. Armstrong; illus. by James Barkley

Crispin: The Cross of Lead (Hyperion, 2002) by Avi

Walk Two Moons (HarperCollins, 1994) by Sharon Creech

The Midwife's Apprentice (Clarion, 1995) by Karen Cushman

The Tale of Despereaux (Candlewick, 2003) by Kate DiCamillo; illus. by Timothy Basil Ering

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (Atheneum, 1967) by E. L. Konigsburg

The Giver (Houghton, 1993) by Lois Lowry

Sarah, Plain and Tall (Harper & Row, 1985) by Patricia MacLachlan

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (Atheneum, 1971) by Robert C. O'Brien; illus. by Zena Bernstein

Island of the Blue Dolphins (Houghton, 1960) by Scott O'Dell

A Single Shard (Clarion, 2001) by Linda Sue Park

Bridge to Terabithia (Crowell, 1977) by Katherine Paterson; illus. by Donna Diamond

The Great Gilly Hopkins (Crowell, 1978) by Katherine Paterson

The Higher Power of Lucky (Jackson/Atheneum, 2006) by Susan Patron; illus. by Matt Phelan

Hatchet (Bradbury, 1987) by Gary Paulsen

Missing May (Jackson/Orchard, 1992) by Cynthia Rylant

Holes (Foster/Farrar, 1998) by Louis Sachar

Maniac Magee (Little, Brown, 1990) by Jerry Spinelli

Wringer (Cotler/HarperCollins, 1997) by Jerry Spinelli

Moon Over Manifest (Delacorte, 2010) by Clare Vanderpool

From the July/August 2011 issue of The Horn Book Magazine. This essay is adapted from a speech titled "In Search of the Newbery," delivered at the Highlights Children's Writers Workshop at Chautauqua in 2008.

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My quest to track down the Newbery began a long way from this country. I had been asked to speak at the Mubarak Library in Cairo to a group of Egyptian writers on "The Heartbeat of Children's Literature."

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NEWBERY Award Book from your birth year

Read a Newbery or Honor book from the year of your birth

Post the citation with a brief summary with your comments on the book.

Consider if the title has stood the test of time.

Is it dated?

Does the universal author's message still speak to the reader?

Click here to find the Newbery Winners from the past

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Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC)

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Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC)

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Signing in with appropriate rights will provide you with access to published material. (Refresh your browser if you arrived here after signing in at another ALA resource.)

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The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman

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The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman

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Cushman, K. (1996). The Midwife’s Apprentice (rpkg). Harper Collins.
A young girl with no family and only the name of Brat struggles to find her way in the world, until she meets a midwife who is willing to train her.

I read this book over and over when I was a kid. I really loved Brat's/Alyce's spunk and the historical setting. It's been a little while since I've read this title, but I think since it's historical fiction that it will stand the test of time better than some books. The author's message still speaks to me: overcoming the fear of failure and continuing to persevere. These messages are just as important today as they were when the book was published.

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The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate 

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The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate 

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Applegate, K. A., & Castelao, P. (2011). The one and only Ivan. New York: HarperCollins.

Ivan is a gorilla living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall. He doesn't remember much of his life before captivity, and enjoys his days doing art and watching his TV. His friends are Bob the dog and Stella an elderly elephant. But Ivan's world changes when the arrival of a new baby elephant (Ruby) joins their group. She gives him a new perspective on the world he grew so use to.

I read this in undergrad and around the same time, people were questioning the moral value of circus'. This book stood out to me because of the narration between the animals and their point of view was so different from any other story I have read. While delving into deep topics on animal rights, and the ethics of circus' there are sprinkles of humor through out to lighten the mood of the book.
About three years after reading this book, I remember in the news that the worlds most famous circus,   Ringling Bros. Circus, Barnum & Bailey Circus, would be disbanding due to many animal rights protests. In the future, kids will never know what a real circus was like other than what they see in cartoons and movies.

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Of the books listed in the article "What Makes a Good Newbery Novel," there were two that really struck me: The Tale of Despereaux and Sounder. It's entirely to do with the snippets Gauch quoted in the article (which I suppose was the point). It's really hard for me not to be drawn to a character that spends his days reading and describes music as something that "sounds like heaven" and "tastes like honey."
While the writing quoted from Sounder is powerful ("same mellow sound that had ridden the November breeze"), it's the fact that the dog is greeting his master who's been gone that gets me. Who doesn't love a homecoming?
I'll admit I don't have much interest in reading Hatchet. I couldn't tell you why; it's just never been a book I've chosen from a reading list since the 4th grade. I might have been persuaded otherwise if a quote had been provided?
I would agree with Gauch's assessment that strong characters, settings, and plot make a good Newbery book. But that's also what makes a good story in general. I may be more of a mind of Gauch's friend who could tell a Newbery book (or a contender for the honor) by reading it, but couldn't articulate what that quality was.

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Article Review and The Great Gilly Hopkins

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Article Review and The Great Gilly Hopkins

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Paterson, K. (1978). The Great Gilly Hopkins. Crowell.

There were so many great books in this article, most of which I’ve read, and a couple I hadn’t even heard of. The Tale of Desperaux and Holes are two of my favorites, books that I also enjoyed reading aloud to my kids. Though I know that I read and enjoyed The Great Gilly Hopkins as a child, I honestly couldn’t remember much of it so I decided to read it again. Wow, did it deliver- as Gauch states in her article, I definitely found myself thinking “What a character!” She definitely made me “more than a little uneasy” within the first few pages. Gilly comes around in the end, but in the beginning I found myself wondering what kind of trouble she was going to get into. This story isn’t carried by Gilly alone, as the article mentioned- the setting is also key. I can just picture Trotter’s messy home, in need of a good dusting but full of love. The story arc takes you through a great transformation in Gilly. Throughout you realize that all Gilly wants is a little love and acceptance, though she may not understand respectable ways to get it. The ending left me wanting more, the final moments were heart-wrenching to be sure, but as Trotter points out “Life ain’t supposed to be nothing, ‘cept maybe tough.”

I can honestly say there aren’t any books in the article that I wouldn’t read, especially after meeting Gilly again and reflecting on the books I’ve already read. If the winners reflect all of the qualities mentioned in the article, what’s not to love? I think I’d start by revisiting favorites from my own childhood- Sarah, Plain and Tall, Bridge to Terabithia, Island of the Blue Dolphins, to name a few.

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Lowry, L. (1993). "The Giver." Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: The Learning Company.

This story tells of a young teenage boy named Jonas who lives in a society where a people group known as The Elders rule their world. There is a time where kids get chosen to be the next big thing in their society such as a teacher, an elder, or anything that is important. Jonas, with his gift of wisdom, receives the title "Receiver of Memory." This job gives him later on the authority and puts him off from the rest of his community.
I have not read this book before but I saw the movie and it was actually very good. I could relate to Jonas because he was given a gift that is different (jn a good way) that puts him off from the rest: memory. I was always told that I had a great memory and I still do. I think this book was dated to be in a science-fiction setting and it stood the test of time. If I had an idea of what the author's message was, I would think that the author is trying to tell her audience that gifts are precious and your gifts are given to you for a reason. Use the gift for good, not overdoing it. It definitely speaks to me and I hope it speaks out to everyone.

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The book that spoke to me from the assigned article, What Makes a Good Newbery Novel? by Patricia Lee Gauch is Louis Sachar’s Holes.  I found it humorous that the main character, Stanley Yelnats, blames anything bad that happens in his life on his "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather" even though his family doesn’t “believe in curses”.  It also makes me think of my family.  Even though they said they didn’t believe in curses or superstition, that’s what was blamed if anything went wrong.  In general though, what speaks to me in Newbery books is the way the character moves through the story to overcome whatever obstacles are placed in their way.  There’s not really any books in the article I wouldn’t read.  I have found some of my favorite books by making myself read books I wouldn’t typically read.

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by Katherine Paterson (1977)  HarperCollins; Newbery medal, 1978

In this novel a boy Jesse befriends the new girl in town, Leslie.  They make up their own secret land, Terabithia and pretend to be the rulers.  When Leslie dies tragically in an accident, Jesse has to figure out how to continue without her.

I had read this book when I was a child, but I didn't remember it well, so I reread it.  I was struck by how much of the book still translated.  It still is a great read with strong, interesting characters and a great plot. I enjoy the character of Leslie who loves being the fastest runner in her grade and doesn't mind being eccentric.

The only thing that seemed a little dated was that Leslie didn't have a TV at home.   But I remember having some friends when I was younger who didn't have a TV, or didn't watch tv, so I know it was definitely a cultural phenomenon.  Right now though, with screens being so ubiquitous, that's a little hard to imagine.  And seems like a quaint goal.  But I think the author's message that it's ok to be different and using your imagination is important,  definitely stands the test of time.

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By Madeleine L'Engle
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1962

This is a story about a girl named Meg that isn’t the most popular of girls. She goes on a journey through time and space led by celestial beings. Meg is on a search for her father that has gone missing. Her younger brother Charles Wallace and a friend, Calvin O’Keefe go with her on this adventure. Traveling to different places in the universe, the three encounter all sorts of problems.

This book has been around for years and still seems to be a favorite with children. Some adults may not enjoy it since they might not have the same imagination as a child. Saying that this book is dated would not be fair because in some ways, this book was ahead of its time with the adventures the trio face. The author shows good versus evil in this book, which is always a topic faced by everyone at some point. It also show that love can make people do things that they thought they couldn’t so the message is still valuable today.

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Of the titles that the article highlighted that I haven't read yet, the book that most spoke to me was Moon over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool. The single sentence the article allots to the book ("Abilene Tucker in Clare Vanderpool's Moon Over Manifest desperately trying to understand why her rail-riding father left her alone in Manifest, Kansas.") alludes to many of the key Newbery components the article explores - a driving need, a dynamic setting in what is presumably Depression-era Midwest, a vibrant character. As for the "final scene" component, I guess I'll find out when I read the book! As for books I wouldn't read, I don't think there are any!

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The books Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH and Holes both stood out to me in the Horn Book novel. Both are stories that I have read multiple times (though it has been years). Stanley Yelnats really is a remarkable character and the
setting of the story is such that we meet a series of great character. In the movie Holes there is a rap about the characters that I still remember. They struggle and grow and get out together. The story arc of Holes is unique in that there is both the present moment at Camp Green Lake and also the historic look about what happened at Green Lake in the past that led to the current search for the treasure. The story is written beautifully constantly referencing these lyrics "If only if only the woodpecker sighed..." Holes is one of my favorites, and I am pleased to appreciate it as an award winner, which was news to me upon reading the article.

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Lowry, L. (1989). Number the stars. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Newberry Award Winner 1990

Number the Stars tells the story of a family in occupied Denmark during World War II that helps the resistance to move Jewish families to safety in Sweden.

This is a powerful story about having courage and doing what is good and right even in the face of danger.  This story does stand up to the test of time as these are themes that are relevant even today.  I feel like the author's message is important today as it tells of a horrible event in our world history that we should never forget.

I have wanted to read this book for a long time and am so glad that I finally did. I could not put it down and it quickly became a favorite that I will recommend to my students.

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published by Random House Childrens Books, 1999

Newberry Award Winner 1999

This book is for ages 10 + and tells the story of Stanley Yelnats, a young boy sent to a detention center for youth.  Stanley not only has to learn how to survive the harsh conditions and cruel warden but also learn who he can trust.  There is also the mystery of why they are digging holes.   Stanley is a strong central character and the intense story line and plot twists make it worthy of the Newberry Award.
Like so many Newberry Award winners, it does have dark moments and violence, leading me to recommend it be read with an adult so they can discuss the darker parts of the plot.

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A Wrinkle in Time
1963 Newbery Award-winning novel by Madeleine L'Engle

awards: Sequoyah Book Award, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and was runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Award.
Published by  Ariel Books 1962

This  story about Meg, a girl who is not popular at school who gets ridiculed a lot chronicles  Meg's search for her father.  Meg is on a search for her father, a very gifted scientist, who has gone missing. Her younger brother Charles Wallace and her friend, Calvin O’Keefe go with her in search of her dad.  As the three of them travel through space and time and the universe   the three W's ( celestial beings) help them.

This book has been around since the year of my birth, 1963, and I only read it a few years ago. I think that children who have great imagination would enjoy this book. I also think that I would have loved it more as a child when I believed anything was possible before the "real world" set in on me.

The message of the book still holds true today and I actually think that the book was quite unique and forward thinking for 1963 due to the "celestial beings" and the storyline of love transcending time and space.  Additionally,  the read is exciting, a little mysterious, and a wonderful trip that doesn't really need geographic location to create a wonderful and interesting setting.

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I'm going to be the one who goes against the grain here and say that the Newbery Award. does not sway me much, kind of like the Pulitzer. The award seems rather random and more about the committee's opinion, which also has a great deal to do with the marketing plan attached to a given book (sorry, grew up in Hollywood). That isn't to say that the award isn't important, but "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children" leaves a lot of room for personal opinion.

I understand Gauch's points about what she sees as key points to a Newbery winner, I guess it is just that a number of books have not spoken to me and I would really love to hear the opinions of children rather than adults. That isn't to say that I have not adored books that have won or been given honorable mentions. I also question how we can judge a picture book and full novel in the same category as in 2016. Loved Last Stop on Market Street, but The War that Saved My Life stuck with me a lot longer.

Speaking of books from the article that I really liked, I enjoyed From the Mixed-Up Files and The Tale of Desperaux. I have enjoyed The Giver, though it also highly disturbs me now in a way it didn't as a child. I'm even listening to one of the 2019 honor books right now and it is amazing.

I realize that this rambled a bunch. What it comes down to is that there are a lot of great books out there and that is in part because of this award. I appreciate that role and if I can use the award as a way to curate books for a group of kids, great.

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The Midwife's Apprentice By, Karen Cushman

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The Midwife's Apprentice By, Karen Cushman

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Cushman, K. (1991). The midwife's apprentice. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

For this assignment, I decided to read the Newbery winner from the year I was born, The Midwife's Apprentice. Before I started reading the book, I will admit I had some assumptions about the book. Growing up, I loved various Newbery winners from the 90s such as Shiloh and Walk Two Moons. The Midwife's Apprentice was not a book I had heard of until this class so I assumed that it wasn't an award winner that stood the test of time. When I read the summary, I further assumed the book did not age well, I even wondered why it won a Newbery Medal in the first place. What does the life of a girl in 14th century England have to do with American storytelling?

The Midwife's Apprentice follows a young, girl that is orphaned and homeless in 14th century England. She's found sleeping in a dung heap by the village midwife who offers her food and housing if she works as her apprentice. While the midwife is not the most affectionate or likable person, the girl begins to learn from her and develops her own personal identity. She even names herself Alyce. Conflict ensues between Alyce and the midwife as Alyce becomes more knowledgable and threatens the midwife's role in the village.

After reading the novel, I found that my initial assumptions about the book had changed. While life in 14th century England may not be the most enticing subject to read about, the lessons the book teaches are still timeless. I love that the book teaches young readers to persist and keep trying to achieve our dreams, even when we fail. I think many readers can still connect to Alyce as she tries to find her purpose in life.

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Article Winning Review

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (Atheneum, 1971)
by Robert C. O'Brien; illus. by Zena Bernstein

Mrs. Frisby is a mouse and mother who seeks the help of the rats of NIMH to help her family move their home to a new location. Mrs. Frisby’s youngest son Timothy is sick and he is not able to because he might die. The rats were once apart of a secret mental health experiment and as a result, the rats know how to read and work with electricity. This book has a lot of action and suspenseful moments. I absolutely loved reading it as a child. Some of the other books that I have read are Holes, Sounder, Bridge to Terabithia, and The Giver. I enjoyed reading books that fall into the science fiction/fantasy genre.

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A book title listed in the article, What Makes a Good Newberry Novel, by Patricia Lee Gauch, that speaks to me is The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. The book sounds interesting because of how Gauch describes how the author did not neglect the story to create an original setting, “Did Kate DiCamillo leave her hero behind in order to describe so authentically the parts and contents of her wonderfully wacky castle? Not at all. She wove her hero into the place; both hero and castle rising before us, as the brave little mouse discovers "that gilded thing": music. You get to know both hero and place at the same time” (p.4). There are books where the description of the setting overtakes the plot and the reverse where it is difficult to imagine the setting. There are not any books listed that I would not want to try and read. In elementary school, two out of the twenty books were used in a class reading. It makes me wonder how books are chosen to be read and discussed in classrooms. Specifically, I wonder how much influence children’s literature awards have in schools. This article would be helpful in making an argument as to why the books should be used in an elementary school curriculum.

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Several of the books mentioned in the article are ones that I know I've read in the past. The one that I haven't read that sounded most interesting to me was The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman. For me, the main character's resourcefulness & motivation to better herself & her station is interesting. I think I would enjoy following her story. I also especially enjoy historical fiction, so that appeals to me as well.
The only one that I can say does not appeal to me is The Giver. I remember it being required reading for a class in late elementary school & that I had to force myself to finish it because I just didn't enjoy the story. Maybe I need to give it another look, though.