91 Newberys

A Brief But Unvarnished Summary: Twenty-one soliloquies, most in poetic form, depicting various events in twenty-one lives in a medieval village. A Less Brief, But Still Unvarnished Response: This is a book of poems. However, I unabashedly loved it. The medieval period, I feel, is often misunderstood by the casual student. (There's knights, right? and...people were dirty?) But this gives you a taste of everything about the period, with handy sidebars of explanation and longer, two page essays if a subject requires a little more. Better still, it puts the facts into lives. When told, for example, that the lord had rights over his peasants's property, it doesn't have the same impact as when you read Mogg's story about the time her father died and the lord came to take their best animal in payment. It's one thing to know that women died in childbirth - and that they were giving birth near constantly - but it's another thing entirely to hear Barbary worry about her stepmother giving birth to a second set of twins when the first one almost killed her. Fiction is good for many things, but my favorite application is this: bringing life to a world that is otherwise dead boring. The archives will make obvious that I'm not a great judge of poetry, so I'll only comment that the form did not get in the way of the stories and at times obviously enhanced them. That's the highest compliment I feel qualified to give. DIHaPoMHCB?: Shoosh yeah! I'll stick it next to Catherine Called Birdy and Adam of the Road but we can read it aloud before they can read either of those. Current Score: 83/92 -A.J.S.

A Brief Comment: ACS gave a nice, non-spoilery summary when she reviewed the book last year. We'll leave it there. A Less Brief But Still Unvarnished Response: I'm not sure what it is, but books that have a connection to Wales have the same feel to them.* There is a boy - at least I've only ever seen it be a boy - who somehow gets wrapped up in a deep, ancient mystery, which often has to do with King Arthur and/or King Bran and/or someone with the tricky "Ff" in their name. My experience with Wales is limited to an overnight in Cardiff so it's impossible to say if this is something in the Welsh character, to do with the landscape, or that their language lends itself to mystery, but it is a fact that The Grey King felt very familiar despite my never having read it before. This is not, necessarily, a bad thing. If you enjoy that kind of book, you will enjoy this one. If you do not, there's no reason to even pick this one up. Me, I like those kind of books, so I was pre-disposed to like this one. The story is familiar in other ways besides its Welshness - there's only so many forms a good v. evil plot can take - but it has a good sense of place and character, and manages to tell intimate stories alongside its epic, multi-book sweeping one. Not having read the other books in the series, I got the impression that, in some ways, the epic story of Will's quest for the harp to wake the Seven Sleepers was just an excuse to tell the stories of his friendship with Bran and of Bran's relationship with his father. No doubt this is not true if seen in context. But we have to judge the book on its own merits. DIHaPoMHCB?: Yeah, I think so, pending my perusal of the other volumes. There is nothing worse than reading one book in a series and not being able to read the other ones. Current Score: 82/92 -A.J.S. *As I read I thought of The Lord of the Rings, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Stephen R. Lawhead's Pendragon cycle, and the Chronicles of Prydain series. Apart from LOTR, you'll find at least two of the characteristics mentioned in each of them.

A Brief But Unvarnished Summary: Julie is seven when her mother dies and she is sent to live with her unmarried, schoolteacher aunt. The book follows her as she goes through school and growing up, depicting significant lessons she learns. A Less Brief But Still Unvarnished Response: I was excited to read this book both because I enjoyed Across Five Aprils, another winner by Irene Hunt, and because I feel like I haven't read a Newbery about a girl in awhile. (Seriously, has it been since The Hero and the Crown?) It was pretty good, I think. It is slow, partly due to the writing style in vogue at the time but more because it isn't clear until late in the book what it's even about. Each chapter is an entity to itself, like a collection of short stories with the same characters and wildly differing moods. In one, for example, a young Julie punches the boy she eventually falls in love with. In another, one of her schoolmates dies. In this way, they almost succeed. Their insight into character, along with the author's ability to allow her heroine to do and feel ugly things, is impressive. It just feels like a long stroll through a town you've never been in before. Then, two chapters from the end, it makes sense: Julie is a writer! She has to write what she knows and, more importantly, what she feels! Hence why we get none of Julie in love and all of Julie almost violated and heartbroken. Hence why she spends a chapter on the madness and death of a tertiary character. These events have affected her emotionally, leading to her development as a person and as a writer. With this perspective, they are still disparate, but more harmonious. DIHaPoMHCB? No doubt, my voracious readers will come to it. But there are other, more enjoyable budding writers: Jo March, Anne Shirley and Emily Starr, Betsy Ray. They come first. Also, if I'm going to have them read a book like this, it will be I, Juan de Pareja which does almost the same project but is historical and artsy as well! I LOVE Juan de. Current Score: 81/92 -A.J.S.

A Brief But Unvarnished Summary: A boy has a cat, some friends, and a tense relationship with his father. At the end of the book, the boy has a cat, different friends, a girl, and a marginally better relationship with his father. A Less Brief But Still Unvarnished Response: Two pages into It's Like This, Cat, I said to myself, "Self, this book is what you thought Onion John was." And this time, Self was right. The stories in this book are very loosely held together; they depict situations and people the boy finds himself involved in or with because of Cat. On the whole, I would call them slight. There really isn't a good deal of plotting or meaning - other Newberys do "growing away from childhood friends" or "first love" or "understanding your father" better. What I did like about the book was the very real world the characters inhabit: New York City circa 1960. It fairly leaps off the page in the details: the buses you take to get to the fish market; school zoning; the price of a telephone call or a record. At one point the boy and the girl go to see a matinee of West Side Story, which was actually running on Broadway in 1961. Sometimes details like that date a book, but when done well, I think they make it more enjoyable. Truthfully, I was left with a stronger memory of the book's setting than any of its characters. As you may be able to tell, since I haven't referred to the main character by name. I think it starts with a D. DIHaPoMHCB? Only by accident. I could have lived without reading it so I'm sure they'll be fine. Current Score: 80/92 -A.J.S.

A Somewhat Brief But Unvarnished Summary: Kidnapped by slavers, eleven-year-old Jessie spends the first half of his four-month voyage trying to navigate the difficult and unsettling relationships between the other sailors on the Moonlight. It is rotten, but he finds a way to enjoy himself - until they reach Africa. After they trade for and stow the cargo, Jessie is forced to play his fife while the slaves "dance", serving the double purpose of humiliation and exercise. Their misery affects him deeply; between his growing concern for the slaves and his ever-worsening fear of the slave driver Stout, he hardly has time to worry about the fever sweeping the ship or the American and British patrollers. Neither of these manage to finish them off. Instead, a storm sinks the ship, leaving only Jessie and a lone African boy alive. The boy escapes to Canada. Jessie goes him and forgets his voyage, eventually, but can never listen to music again. A Similarly Sized, Unvarnished Response: I read this book quickly, to get it over with, because it was terrible. But it was supposed to be, of course, because slavery is terrible and the slave trade was terrible and so a book depicting them will necessarily be so as well. And the author even takes it easy on us, telling the story through the eyes of a white boy, rather than one of the Africans. Some might take issue with this; isn't it contextualizing a black experience through white eyes and thus offensive? To a certain extent, perhaps. But I think it's a smart choice. Jessie is not a slave in the same way the Africans are, but their experiences do parallel each other: stolen from their homes and families; enduring a long sea voyage; forced to accomplish demeaning and brutal tasks under threat of severe punishment; fear of the overseers who cause both physical and mental torture. The reader is meant to draw these parallels, then realize that Jessie is actually better off than those he literally walks above. He has a friend. A hope of being free. His name. They have nothing. By showing us Jessie's suffering, the author gives a tiny glimpse into the awful institution that haunted the country. In my opinion, any more would be too much for young readers. DIHaPoMFCB? Hard to say. What's good about this book is very hard; it's not for light reading to just pick off a shelf. Also, I think a good deal of its power comes from the topic rather than the writing, which I didn't find to be very interesting. So I abstain, courteously. Current Score:79/92 -A.J.S.

A Brief But Unvarnished Summary: A collection of poems inspired by the poems and prints of William Blake. A Less Brief But Still Unvarnished Response: ACS spent most of her response griping about poetry qua poetry. I don't disagree with her in general (about poetry, at least!) but I didn't think WIlliam Blake's Inn was as bad as all that. It rhymed, for one thing, which children's poetry should do if it possibly can; the imagery was interesting and sufficiently fantastic to explain why poetry was the best method to explore it. And it was short. And the pictures were delightful. For some reason, I did not put together that "William Blake" referred to THE William Blake, the poet famous - or infamous - for "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell". Although I disagree with Blake's philosophy in general, I can't but applaud Nancy Willard's project. Children's literature is a discipline to itself, one I firmly believe holds merit for adults as well, but one of the side benefits is it's ability to point the young reader towards other, sometimes more advanced work. Like When You Reach Me directs the reader to A Wrinkle in Time and Blue Balliett's books introduce Darwin, Langston Hughes, Vermeer, Alexander Calder, and Frank Lloyd Wright, William Blake's Inn says "Hey! If you like this, try..." It's like getting a book recommendation from a friend, only you know for a fact you have the same taste. A child who enjoys this book may be more likely to give Blake himself a shot. Of course, the reverse may be true as well: hate this book and maybe you'll never try Blake at all. DIHaPoMFCB?: Probably not. I still don't like poetry. Current Score: 78/92 A.J.S.

A Very Brief But Unvarnished Summary: A biography of Lincoln, with pictures. A Less Brief, But Still Unvarnished Response: You know, there's not a lot to say about this book. It's a clear, lucid biography that straightforwardly covers the major facts of Lincoln's life. There's only one other Newbery-winning biography (Invincible Louisa in 1934) and that only makes sense; while you can do some good writing for children in that realm, it's hard to really consider it a work of literature. Even the Pulitzer Prizes count biographies as History. Still, I was a history major in college and I have, coincidentally, been on a bit of a Civil War kick lately, so I'll review this as a biography alone. Though most of the book is straight narrative, the author, Russell Freedman, includes a great deal of primary text to let Lincoln and those who knew him speak in their own words. This is always a plus but especially so when dealing with a master of language, as Lincoln was. It is even-handed and, for the most part, unsentimental. Also, it is clear about Lincoln's shifting position on slavery, which is often glossed over in works for both younger and older readers. The author says in his preface that he intends to present Lincoln as a man and not a legend, and I think he succeeds. As for the pictures, which are half of the book's draw, there aren't as many of them as one would think. The ones that are there are well-chosen and serve their purpose. My one complaint is that several pictures were clearly taken with a modern, colour camera but were printed in black-and-white, and the difference was distracting. I do not know if this is the case in later editions of the book. DIHaPoMFCB? Yes. It gives all the important facts without resorting to hagiography, and that's a difficult thing to do when dealing with Lincoln. Current Score: 77/92 A.J.S.

A preview of coming attractions.

A Brief But Unvarnished Summary: Younger Brother is a Navajo Indian who lives in the shadow of the Waterless Mountain. He has visions. He makes a pilgrimage to the Pacific Ocean. He rides in a helicopter. He learns to be a medicine man. He grows up. A Nearly as Brief but Still Unvarnished Summary: Sigh. This is exactly the kind of book I mentioned in my last post. When I thought this book was about how Younger Brother became a medicine man I was interested, but in the end he is essentially the same person he was at the beginning and I frankly find that useless. Without a plot, the book depends on its characters; without characters, it needs an actual plot. Without either of those things, Waterless Mountain is a loosely tied together exploration of Navajo spirituality. Which I would no doubt like if I were an anthropologist but dislike very much in my children's literature. (I don't even like books that are touchy-feely explorations of my own faith - but that's for different reasons.) About the only good thing I can say about this book is that it is well-reseached. Unfortunately, that's not enough. DIHaPoMFCB?: Nope. If I had a gif of the Johnson, I would pull it out here. Current Score: 76/92 -A.J.S.