The Winner!

This year's Newbery Winner was Merci Suárez Changes Gears.  For the past few years I have been following this group on Goodreads, but this year I decided that I won't do it just because last year there quite a few that I was unable to read because they were not available on audio.  It's a great group!  And if you can read a book and don't have to listen to it, you will really enjoy the group!  It has a lot of great members and everyone has great insight.  I don't think that this was one of the books that the group read last year, but I have to say, I found it to be very Newbery-Worthy.  It certainly was no 1954.  But I didn't like Merci all that much as a character.  But again, that probably just means it was a very well-written, realistic portrayal of a "real" person.   I still think Ghost Boys was my pick and I am surprised it didn't get named as an honor even.  But that's the way the Newbery goes sometimes.

This is it.

Plain and simple.  Auma's Long Run deserves the Newbery this year.  It also deserves the Printz.  If it does not win it will be 1954 all over again.  

Incredible.  Simply incredible.

Eucabeth A. Odhiambo, a professor at Shippensburg University has written and inspirational, heart-breaking, heart-melting, hard and important book telling the story of a 13-year old girl living in Kenya in the 1980s when the AIDS crisis was just beginning to take hold.  

Dr. Odhiambo also an includes this link from the UN which can show you the progress that has been made and the important work that still needs to be done.  

The winner.  No matter what the committee says.  

Metaphors

So was Orphan Island one big metaphor?  I think it was just too smart for me. I have read reviews from people I really respect and admire, like  Czechgirl, who absolutely loved this book, so I am sure I just didn't understand it.  I really had a hard time getting through it because I found the main character to be so unlikable and I really didn't get to know the other characters enough to care about them, though some did seem likable.  I wonder if this is one of those deals where the author had more in what she wrote, but the publisher made her take out a bunch so that they could make it into a sequel.  That is what happened to my friend and her husband with their book Claws.  They weren't too happy with the final product because it was so different from what they had written and was to be made into two books or even three.  The book sold very well!  But the publisher lost a big client during the time the whole thing was coming out, Cornelia Funke, so they didn't end up doing a sequel.  Funke reunited with Chicken House this year, but still, it just goes to show you that money changes everything.
Again, however, everyone else really seemed to love OI for what it was, so it probably was just me. They are saying it is Newbery worthy, so I probably need to take another look.  But there were so many unanswered questions.  Which is great!  But it just didn't pull me in enough to warrant me wanting to ponder the answers.  Again, probably all on me.

Very Interesting Concept!

See You in the Cosmos was really good.  Such a neat way it done, recordings on an iPod that Alex hopes to send into space where aliens can find it and learn all about life on earth.  It is neat!  But there is so much more-- mental illness, deadbeat dads, death, brothers and sisters, all kinds of things.  Just a great book.  Am I ready to say Newbery material?  Sure, yes!  But did it wowowowowow me?  Sadly, no, not wowowowow.  Just maybe wow.  Let's see what the next books will bring!

Surprised

Siren Sisters took me a while because I had to read it.  It isn't available on audio.  I just don't know.  It was good.  I guess throughout it though, I kept wondering why it was chosen to be considered for the Newbery book group.  I just kept thinking it would get to that point where I would say, "Oh!  I see!" But it just never did, for me.  Don't get me wrong- I can totally see why this would be a well liked book!  I just didn't get that "Oh!  I see!" "Yes, this could be a Newbery!" feel.

Oh, Freedom

Freedom Over Me:  Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Bryan was a Newbery Honor book this year and also a Coretta Scott King Honor.  This is a short book, a book shorter than those I would count on goodreads, but this book was SO powerful that it needed to be counted, regardless of length.  Beautiful. Important.
Especially after what I heard and saw last month.  At one of the places where I work a father and daughter came in with a list of books from which the daughter had to pick.  The father told me that "she doesn't like books about black people, Chinese people or Indians (sic, she meant Native Americans)."  Unreal.  This girl who looked like Hitler's poster child is growing up in a family (and going to a charter school, go figure) where differences are not accepted, let alone welcomed.  I will pray for that family, but to be honest, I was sickened.  Sickened.  So I need to pray for me, too.  So that my heart can be open to praying for this family.  Because wow.  What a sad, sad and hateful way to be.
I hate to have this story tainted this post about this incredible book.  But we still have a LONG way to go in this country.  The next time someone tells me we don't need Affirmative Action any more, or that racism doesn't exist.  Well, I will do what I always do and say, "You're so terribly wrong. More wrong that you know."

Award Season

I have long given up predicting winners.  I mean, there was 1954 after all...I didn't see hardly any of the winners coming this year.
The Newbery winner was one I didn't see coming, but one that I thought was really excellent, having just finished The Girl Who Drank the Moon.  Kelly Barnhill lives in Minneapolis, and so that just makes her awesome already.
This is a fairy tale, but like all fairy tales, I guess, it also has a lot of reality in it.  There are governments that treat citizens like the people of the Protectorate were treated.  Fear-based control is all too common.  And the love in this book is so real, too.  Great book and Newbery worthy for sure.  I still think Towers Falling should have won, but I am happy about one.  It was a tough year to choose, I bet.  There were a lot of good books among those I read and I didn't even read all that many.

This One

This has to be the Newbery this year.  I loved Towers Falling.  A 9-11 story, but more than a 9-11 story.  Set 15 years after 9-11 in a Brooklyn school where teachers are beginning to talk about the horror of 9-11 as history to middle school students.  But more than that, though because the characters are so real and so good and so engaging.  Recommended for the Newbery. Wow.  Wow. Wow.   There were so many cheesy traps that the author, Jewell Parker Rhodes could have been sucked into but she didn't at all and it was just so so good to read about characters who acted like real people.  I see she has written many more books!  I must read them now!!!!!!

Esau Have I Hated

The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia, the movie, not the song or the remake of the song, has a scene in it, with a line in it, that I have often quoted and always loved.

Travis: And I asked the Lord, "Lord, why have you forsaken me?". But there was silence. So , I asked again, "Lord, WHY have you forsaken me?", and there was silence. So I asked again, "LORD, WHY have you forsaken me?"... and this great booming voice said "Geez, I don't know Travis, I guess something about you just chaps at my ass."

I am thinking that Louise feels that way.  Jacob Have I Loved is a book I read a long time ago by the most amazing, Katherine Paterson.

Having a sister must be very hard.  It is really hard for Louise who always feels out shined by her twin.  There were so many times in this book that I spoke aloud, "What?!" or "No way!"

I was just thinking, I wonder what the book would have been like if told from the POV of Caroline. I bet someone has asked Paterson that.  I have to investigate!

I investigated, but I didn't find anything.  But I didn't look too hard.  I just think that would be a neat thing to find out.

The book takes place on the fictional island of Rass in the Chesapeake Bay.  Louise and Caroline are 14 when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, that's about when the story begins, and the story finishes when both are grown women.  Though the main details are mostly about their growing up years.

This is a good, good, beautiful story.  But can anything else be expected from Paterson, who is just magic with words.

Another from1941

The Matchlock Gun is a Newbery winner and also super-racist.  It was even more awful to read through this slogging and ridiculous piece of junk.
Set in 1756 in the colony of New York and that is really all you need to know besides, don't bother.

Third One, Still Fantastic

First came One Crazy Summer then P.S.:  Be Eleven and now Gone Crazy in Alabama and the third was just as "I want to read this all now!" as the first and the second.  Delphine and her sisters Fern and Vonetta are spending the summer in Alabama with their grandma, Big Ma and their great-grandma, Ma Charles.  This is so insightful.  There is a lot about sisters here,.  Delphine and hers and also Ma Charles and her sister.  There is a lot about racial identity and civil rights and there is a lot of love.  Wonderful, wonderful addition.  It was a Coretta Scott King winner, to me, it should have also been a Newbery Honor.  But that's 1954 for you.  Should be read by all ages, it's another one of those kind.  And it would be enjoyed by all ages as well.

Hard to Understand...

I listened to Across Five Aprils shortly after reading Nightjohn and so listening to AFA was more difficult than it might have been otherwise. I had heard that Irene Hunt was a great author and this is only book that I have read of hers.  This was a Newbery Honor Book. Nightjohn was not.  Huh.  Strange?  Surprising?  Not really, given the 1954 quality of the Newbery.  
Across Five Aprils was a good book.  It was.  But the thing is...while there are definitely anti-slavery messages in this book, there are also characters who are pro-slavery.  Or people who at the very least, argue that the South should have been allowed to make its own decisions regarding slavery.  Now I know this is realistic.  Of course there were mixed emotions, strong emotions.  I know that...but, but I just don't get it.  I just don't.  I found myself feeling the same way as I listened to Revolution.  In that book there were characters who were trying to find their way, get their heads around racial relations.  I just don't get it...it just makes no sense to me.  How, how, how can separate but not equal make any sense?  How can one be judged by the color of one's skin?  How does that work?  How does what one looks like on the outside make any difference at all when it comes to, well, anything?  How?   I don't know.  I just don't know.

Christopher Paul Curtis

has become an author that I love, love, love.  Elijah of Buxton was incredible.  Christopher Paul Curtis had my heart with The Mighty Miss Malone and now I am just reading everything I can that he has written.  Elijah of Buxton had me quoting and reading out-loud to my mom.  It had me in tears.  I didn't know anything about Buxton, I am ashamed to say. 
The thing is, I have an aunt who won't read fiction at all because she says that she doesn't want to waste her time.  She only reads nonfiction because she can learn from it.  Well, I have learned so much from fiction. 
Oh man...this is a book that I want everyone to read because I just want to talk about it.  Incredible.  Everyone.  Everyone should read this beautiful book. 
As I look at the Newbery Award for that year, I am just sickened.  If this isn't 1954, then I don't know what is. 

How much misery has there been? Is there still?

Before We Were Free taught me a lot.  It is the story of Anita, living in the Dominican Republic near the end of the reign of Rafael Trujillo, whom I had never heard of, I am embarrassed to say.  This book won the Pura Belpré Award in 2004, instead of the Newbery, of course, no shock there.  That went to The Tale of Despereaux, which I have not read...but come on, not even a Newbery Honor to BWWF?  Olive's Ocean got an Honor that year....really?   And this didn't?  Feels like 1954 to me.  This was the first book I've ever read by Julia Álveraz but it won't be my last.  Incredible.

Oldie but Goodie

Mr. Popper's Penguins was written in 1938, that was a long time ago.  The story is set sort of during the time of the life of Gypsy Rose Lee in the time of Gypsy, or so it seemed to me.  That whole traveling act kinda deal.  I liked that. It made me think of Frances "Baby" Gumm, and we all know how much I love her!  This book makes a great read aloud for younger children.  It was made into a movie, starring Jim Carrey, which I did not see.   Well worth reading and funny illustrations.  It did win a Newbery Honor, which is weird because kids like it!

Maybe if I read it!

So as I have said over and over again, I am not too big on awards!  This year's Newbery was Flora and Ulysses:  the illuminated adventures.  I bought the audio and I did enjoy it.  Its a very creative, original story and quite funny.  There were a few problems with it.  I found myself having to go back more than a few times and listen to certain parts again because I just found myself drifting off.  After I finished it though, I realized that its a book/graphic novel hybrid!  No wonder there were parts that I felt were totally bizarre!  I ended up buying the ebook and my goodreads rating went from 4 of 5 to 5 of 5!  So, hooray for Flora and Ulysses!

Underwhelming

Well I can't say I am suprised.  The Youth Media Award winners are here. 
I was happy with some. 
Year of Billy Miller and Doll Bones getting Newbery Honors.  Good deal.  I haven't read Flora and Ulysses, but I am looking forward to it after my magical experience with Edward Tulane.   No mention at all of The Boy on the Porch and what really should have won, if we are all honest, P.S. Be Eleven, if not on its own merit, just because of the horrible 1954-like tragedy that was Moon Over Manifest.   P.S. did win the Coretta Scott King, which is wonderful, but man...man...man...it really should have gotten the Newbery.  Or maybe time has shown us that the Coretta Scott King award is a more prestigious, educated award.  Why hope for a Newbery if it is just going to keep overlooking books that are clearly outstanding.  Look at who won the Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award, the VERY VERY VERY deserving Patricia and Fredrick McKissack.  LOVE LOVE LOVE Patricia McKissack.  Especially The Honest to Goodness Truth.  Mr. McKissack died last year, but we know he is celebrating now! 
As for the Caldecott Award.  Nothing I had hoped for even got an honor.  But I can't deny that Locomotive isn't very, very deserving. 
Very excited to see Watermelon Seed get the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award and to see Tim Federle get a Stonewall honor for Better Nate Than Ever!  And how cool that Help for the Haunted got an Alex! 
I am super excited to read Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass!  And I was happy to see Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote:  a migrant's tale get both author and illustrator Belpré honors. 
The Printz Award was the biggest shock for me.  I really thought that Eleanor and Park would win.  Ah I just can't even go on anymore.  Underwhelmed, indeed. 

Award time!

Yes it is award season!  No, I am not talking about the Golden Globes, or the SAG Awards or the Grammy's, I am talking about the ALA Book and Media Awards!  I've been to ALA Midwinter before, but not last year and not this year.  Maybe next year.  The Book and Media awards are always exciting.  But you know how I feel about awards in general.  We'll see what happens this year.  My predictions are always wrong, but that won't stop me.  I think that The Boy on the Porch will win and deserves the Newbery.  And I think that The Dark deserves, but won't win the Caldecott.  I think that Eleanor and Park should win and deserves the Printz.  I like this article from School Library journal and I have to say that The Year of Billy Miller and Doll Bones were awesome.  Read what she has to say about One Crazy Summer.  That was 1954 for sure.  As the author says, the fact that it didn't get the gold still makes me angry!  So when I reflect back on One Crazy Summer,  and After Tupac and D Foster, all of these predictions seem pointless!
Wait!  Wait!  Wait!  There is only one book that really deserves the Caldecott and that is Nelson Mandela by Kadir Nelson.  I forgot that it came out in 2013.  It came out right in January.  There is no way it will win though.  But it should.

Another one of those I should have read...

a long time ago.  Number the Stars is everything that people have said it is.  I grew up at Elfinwild Presbyterian Church and a million years ago, our pastor, The Rev. Dr.  Robert F. Tuttle preached a beautiful sermon that included a story about King Christian X of Denmark.  I need to think a little about the details.  But I remember he ended the illustration with, "and the lives of the people were saved because they had a king who was willing to die in their place."  But he was a wonderful, eloquent preacher and he said it much better.  So much that it stayed with me, more than twenty-five years later. 

Printz Buzz

With the end of the year fast approaching, the Mock Printz Awards are all the buzz.  One book that has gotten so much is Holly Black's The Coldest Girl in Coldtown.  I had recently read Black's Doll Bones, which is getting Newbery buzz, but IMO, it is too good to actually win.  I like vampire books.  But I am not a fanatic about them.  I loved listening to Dracula.  And I loved the Twilight books, even though I was Team Jacob.  The Coldest Girl was pretty good.  It was long man, really long.  I listened to it on 3 speed and it was still long, but yet, the world that Black has created is amazing.  I really feel like I want to know more about it.  I wonder if I should have read it, but I don't know, it was super long.  I like Tana, the main character, who lives in a world where vampires are known evil things in this world.  Folks have to be pretty careful not to get caught out after dark.  Infected folks and vampires live in places called Coldtowns.  There is a lot of vampire myth and lore packed into this book.  Even though vampires are deadly, they are pretty sexy too.  Still, if I had to pick a vampire to be my man, it would be Lucius Vladescu.  When will Ms. Fantasky bring him back!  If you like a good vampire story, though, you won't be disappointed in Coldest.  It is creepy.