Some titles to avoid, and some to consider.
Some titles to avoid, and some to consider
I hope that the lovely librarians at my local branch aren’t annoyed at all the times I send them searching for my latest book request. My most recent kick has been Newbery winners, and of the dozen or so I have checked out, so far, I’ve made it through five. The grand total of Newbery winners is 102, I believe (though I’m not sure if the 2024 winner was announced yet), and there are scads of Newbery Honor books. (I tried to count them but kept getting lost. It might be somewhere in the 300s.) Personally, I’ve read 30 of the winners (well, 35, but five of those have been in the last few months) and 43 of the honors. Thirty is an unacceptable number — not even halfway through the full list — so I’m working to remedy that in the coming months.
Newbery winners (and honors books) are a fascinating genre. Well, actually, they’re quite the mix of genres, and winners have included everything from historical fiction to poetry to a nonfiction work on the making of the atomic bomb. Many of the winners on this list (and plenty in the honors section, too) deal with tough topics and do so with varying levels of skill. Johnny Tremain, the 1944 winner by Esther Forbes, covers disability, pride, rejection, and even death. Katherine Paterson’s 1978 winner, Bridge to Terabithia, also focuses on death, as well as bullying and poverty. There are some books that I believe shouldn’t even be in the honors section, such as Stephanie S. Tolan’s Surviving the Applewhites, and I just generally have an aversion to everything written by Scott O’Dell (four of his books appear on this list). For those wondering, I wrote about Tolan’s book in the July 2024 edition of the Washington Review of Books. You can read my whole tirade there, but suffice it to say, “It was a serious letdown from the beginning, unfortunately, as weak characters and absurd plotlines poured across the page.” As for Scott O’Dell, well, I’ve had it out for him ever since I read The Spanish Smile as a teen; it’s ostensibly your typical coming-of-age story — if typical coming-of-age stories involve luxurious private islands, controlling fathers, and gruesome murders. Fair or not, I’ve loathed his books ever since.
Just because a book is old doesn’t mean it’s good (and vice versa), and just because it’s on the Newbery list doesn’t mean it’s a worthwhile read. With that in mind, I started exploring various titles on the winners and honors lists and, in order of least enjoyed to most enjoyed, here’s what I’ve found so far.
Miracles on Maple Hill, the 1957 winner by Virginia Sorensen, left me wondering about the Newbery selection committee for that year. What exactly did they see in this book? All I saw was an annoying main character who completed no kind of character growth in the whole story. This book is supposedly about a family that moves to the country after World War II, in hopes that the change of air and scenery will help their father heal from his terrible experiences in said war. What readers got, though, was a choppy, ill-considered book that followed through on none of its beginning promises. The relationship between the main children (a brother-and-sister duo) was one of near-constant dislike or jealousy, and their adventures aren’t entertaining. There’s no consistent pacing to the book, and characters change or appear or disappear abruptly throughout. Two scenes in particular stand out as very disheartening: In one, the children (Marly and Joe) go snooping around someone else’s property. They almost get caught but escape at the last minute and scare the elderly owner when they run away. Instead of going back and apologizing, they slink home and don’t tell anyone what happened. Later on, this owner, a kind old gentleman whom Joe eventually becomes friends with, gets hurt right before Christmas, and Joe asks his parents to host the man at their home while he recovers. But the mother immediately says no, complaining that the man smells bad, and then the father takes her son’s side against her. The whole scene plays out very poorly, and not only is there no resolution between the parents, but the next chapter jumps to spring and never references the Christmas episode again.
Ruth Sawyer’s 1937 winner, Roller Skates, has been on my reading list for quite a while. While it wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t as endearing as, say, Betsy-Tacy or Little House in the Big Woods. Lucinda Wyman pretends to be an orphan for a year when her parents go to live in Italy for her mother’s health. The writing is a bit choppy and not stylistically consistent. Lucinda is ten in this book, and while I do know plenty of precocious ten-year-olds, some of Lucinda’s adventures are pretty far-fetched. The book also deals not only with death but also with a fairly morbid murder. While Lucinda does have a few responsible adults in her life, she really does just run around as she likes for a year. She’s not exactly unlikeable, but she’s also not particularly appealing.
One novel I wholeheartedly relished, however, was The Trumpeter of Krakow, by Eric P. Kelly. I was fairly convinced I’d read this book many years ago, but this apparent reread brought back no early memories. All the better, I say — who wouldn’t want to be able to enjoy a fascinating book again as if for the first time? Published in 1928, this book takes you back to medieval Krakow, Poland, and follows the adventures of young Joseph Charnetski as his family flees Ukraine for Poland in hopes of getting a secret item to the king there. They are pursued by the wicked villain, Peter of the Button Face, and meet many other holy, weak, beautiful, and nasty characters along the way. This story is full of excellent historical detail, a marvelous saint, and curious alchemists. Above all, it paints a powerful picture of Poland’s wonderful national pride.
It’s Like This, Cat, by Emily Neville, and The Cat Who Went to Heaven, by Elizabeth Coatsworth, also made my “finished” list, even though I’m not particularly fond of cats. Neville’s man vs. man–type plot was an interesting snapshot of 1950s New York City but not especially noteworthy (and no, not because it’s about a boy — I like many “boy” books). Coatsworth’s brief story, set in Japan, was more interesting and treated readers to almost lyrical prose.
Some of the Newbery Honor books were more entertaining to me than the winners. (Case in point: Laura Ingalls Wilder never won a Newbery Award, but she did win three honor awards.) The two that have captured my imagination so far are Downright Dencey, by Caroline Snedeker, and Phebe Fairchild: Her Book, by Lois Lenski. Lenski’s Strawberry Girl is an old favorite of mine, and it’s been a treat to read another of her works. This one, set in rural Connecticut in the 1830s, follows the fate and fortunes of Phebe Fairchild as she lives with her cousins while her mother and sea-captain father are traveling. Phebe is a spirited, imaginative child, and while she loves and is loved in return by her extended family, she often finds herself at odds with them over the strict rules they follow regulating children’s dress, religious instruction, and entertainment.
Snedeker’s book is also set on the East Coast, but this time in the early 1800s. It tells the tale of Dionis (Dencey) Coffyn, who, like Lenski’s Phebe, is the daughter of a sea captain. Dencey comes from a family of Quakers, and the sect’s good and bad qualities are tightly woven into the cloth making up this story. An impulsive, stubborn, determined child, Dencey has a temper — and it’s this temper that changes the trajectory of her life and those around her when she throws a rock at the town waif, Jetsam. The story then follows the two children as Dencey tries to make amends; we see the reaction of her family and the poignant growth of both Dencey and Jetsam.
So there you are. Some titles to avoid, and some titles to consider. But it’s always worth remembering that just because something has won an award doesn’t mean it was award-worthy.