Newbery Wayback Machine: Daniel Boone, by James Daugherty (1940)

 

Hooooooo boy.

I don't know how well it comes across, but I've tried to be fair to these early Newbery winners. While not glossing over their flaws, I've tried to show how each one fits into the emerging story of American children's literature, note the things that each one does well, and place the books in the context of their time.

My friends, all of that fails me when I come to Daniel Boone, James Daugherty's 1940 winner. It's a self-satisfied hymn to racism and Manifest Destiny, accompanied by hideously ugly (and somehow even more racist) artwork by the author. The pacing is terrible, and the prose confuses overuse of adjectives for inspiring writing. It doesn't even work very well as a biography -- it doesn't have a timeline, assumes far too much background knowledge on the part of its readers, and sometimes fails to even refer to its many poorly described characters by their full names. 

No libraries in my consortium own Daniel Boone; I had to use the statewide interlibrary loan system to even find a copy to read. It's completely out of print, a distinction that might make it unique in the Newbery canon. Even the most deeply problematic Newbery winners stay in print -- Shen of the Sea, Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, The Matchlock Gun, all are still easily available, straight from the presses. But if, for whatever reason, you want a copy of Daniel Boone, you're going to have to find it on the secondhand market, at prices that are often north of $100. 

Part of the problem is that the racism (mostly directed at Native Americans, but with jabs at African Americans as well) so thoroughly permeates the book that it would be impossible to produce an edited version, as was done for The Voyages of Doctor Doolittle and Rabbit Hill, and have more than a pamphlet left. I'm reminded of Roger Ebert, who, when speaking about software designed to remove offensive passages from DVDs, opined, "Theoretically there could be a version of Fight Club suitable for grade-schoolers, although it would be very short."

Daniel Boone himself is a complicated historical figure, and certainly one about whom a fascinating biography could be written. It's hard to get a sense of the man from Daniel Boone, however -- his personality is flattened into a caricature of a frontiersman. I don't feel like I know him much better after finishing the book than I did before I began. 

James Daugherty was well-regarded in his day, both as an author and as an illustrator -- he picked up two Caldecott Honors as well, for Andy and the Lion (1939) and Gillespie and the Guards (1957). I haven't read either of those, though I do note that Andy and the Lion at least is still in print. I can say that, at this remove, Daugherty is not a major figure in the history of children's literature. If Daniel Boone is representative of his work, it's easy for me to understand why.

The only remaining question I have is this: is Daniel Boone the worst Newbery winner ever? I think it depends on what criteria you want to use. The other real contender, in my personal view, is Smoky, the Cowhorse. Smoky is probably three times the length of Daniel Boone, and might be the single least interesting book I've ever read; from a purely technical perspective, I'd argue that it's worse than Daniel Boone. But if there's a more nauseatingly racist book among the Newberys, I certainly can't tell you what it might be; I'm unable to come up with a good ethical defense of Daniel Boone, and from that perspective, it might represent the actual bottom of the Newbery barrel. 

Newbery Wayback Machine: Invincible Louisa, by Cornelia Meigs (1934)

 

An interesting facet of the experience of reading some of the older Newbery winners is the difference between their reception at the time of their publication and the way they come across now. When Invincible Louisa, Cornelia Meigs' 1934 winner was published, Children's Literature raved that it was a "graceful, well-written account," adding that Meigs "weaves in many evocative descriptions of Louisa's environment and feelings, thus creating a biography that seems more interesting and appealing than a more factual, unadorned work."

Reading Invincible Louisa in 2020, I found it a dull grind of a book. The tone, full of mawkish sentimentality and unconcealed hero worship, was off-putting and strange. In order to enjoy Invincible Louisa at all, one has to fully sign on to the theory that Louisa May Alcott was not only one of The Greatest Writers Ever, but that both she and every member of her family were some of the finest specimens of humanity that America has ever produced, worthy of the most profound respect and admiration. The hagiographic tone sits uneasily with me, and starts to feel downright defensive in places -- most notably when discussing Louisa's father, Bronson Alcott, the least practical of the New England Transcendentalists, and a man who, let's be honest, failed out of a lot of the things he tried to do. 

It also helps -- a lot -- if the reader already possesses a wealth of background knowledge on its subject. Invincible Louisa assumes that its audience has already read and is intimately familiar with the details of Alcott's most famous work, Little Women. Now, that book remains a classic, and there are still plenty of modern children who are familiar with the story -- if not from the novel, then perhaps from one of the four classic film adaptations of it. However, my guess is that the number of children who require no explanation as to the identities and importance of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau is miniscule, as are those who can tell you the entire plot and theme of Pilgrim's Progress -- which are additional things that Invincible Louisa takes for granted. Given all of this, it's hard for me to picture many children who would make much headway with the book, assuming they even picked it up.

Speaking of children picking Invincible Louisa up, I'm not sure I've ever seen a book issued with so many different covers with such little appeal. The image at the top of this article is the edition I read, which, with its severe black and white shot of Alcott in profile on a faded gold background, is almost confrontationally off-putting. But there's a whole wealth of other choices:

There's the original 1933 edition, where Louisa seems to be in the process of turning into a giraffe

A 1975 printing, in which Louisa is a knockoff Paul Klee drawing, and her soul is trying to escape from her puckered eyeballs.

The 1968 printing, with near-unreadable text on the blue cover, and an "insert image here" silhouette of Louisa

The "I did this in five minutes using royalty-free images and fonts" Kindle cover

The 1991 cover, which depicts the time that Louisa spent attending Sweet Valley High

And the 1995 "designed by grandma" cover, which, bizarrely, seems to still be the one the publisher is using.

Poor Louisa. An iconic writer deserves better than this.

Eight Honor books were named in 1934, which is tied with 1931 for the all-time high. The best known of them is Wanda Gág's The ABC Bunny, which is the book I would have chose for the Newbery, but which, as a picture book, probably didn't stand a chance of taking the top honor that year. At any rate, we still have Invincible Louisa, though it's clad in some of the worst packaging imaginable.

2018 Contenders: Donald Trump: Outspoken Personality and President, by Jill Sherman

*deeeeeeeeeeeep breath*

I stopped by my local library the other day, and was browsing the shelf of new children's books. It turned out that the new batch of presidential biographies written after Donald Trump's win had arrived, and I couldn't resist taking this one home to have a look at it.

The presidential election of 2016 probably wasn't the nastiest of all time. (I've always enjoyed the tales of 1800's election, which featured, among other things, Thomas Jefferson's supporters accusing John Adams of having "a hideous hermaphroditical character," and Adams' supporters in turn spreading rumors that Jefferson had actually died, at a time when that was a lot harder to fact-check.) It was, however, the most deeply unpleasant of my lifetime, and I was curious to see how Jill Sherman would choose to address this unpleasantness in Donald Trump: Outspoken Personality and President.

The answer is that Sherman largely sidesteps the issue. She does mention that Trump's announcement of his candidacy contained statements that "immigrants can bring problems to the United States," but there's no mention of what kind of problems Trump mentioned, or of the fact that his comments specifically targeted Mexicans. There's no mention at all of Trump's Access Hollywood tape (or indeed, of any of his questionable remarks about women), of the proposed border wall, or of Trump's role in the "birther" movement. There's a bland mention that "Trump made other controversial statements that some people considered to be offensive," but that's about it. (It does, however, briefly explain the scandal about Hillary Clinton's emails.)

In fairness, I wouldn't have wished the job of writing this book on my worst enemy. At a time of deep political polarization, writing a biography about one of the most controversial candidates in the country's history is a thankless task. I'm not actually sure it's possible to write a successful version of this book; I am certain that it's impossible to write a version of it that would please everyone. I should also mention that the first part of the book, dealing with Trump's pre-political life, works better than the second part. But it's easy to see how hard Sherman is struggling to present a neutral view of her subject, and the seams, so to speak, never stop showing.

Presidential biographies do actually have a proud history in the Newbery rolls. In addition to Lincoln: A Photobiography, Russell Freedman's 1988 winner, the list of Honor books includes Leader By Destiny: George Washington, Man and Patriot (Jeanette Eaton, 1939); George Washington's World,  Abraham Lincoln's World, and George Washington (Genevieve Foster, 1942, 1945, 1950); and Abraham Lincoln, Friend of the People and Theodore Roosevelt, Fighting Patriot (Clara Ingram Judson, 1951, 1954). But there's essentially no chance of Donald Trump: Outspoken Personality and President joining them at next year's YMAs.


Published in April by Lerner Publications

2016 Contenders: Poet, by Don Tate

George Moses Horton was the first African-American poet to have a book published in the South (The Hope of Liberty, 1829). Amazingly, this occurred while he was still a slave. Though Horton's hope was that the money from the book would enable the purchase of his freedom, his master refused to sell him, and Horton's slavery continued until the end of the Civil War, some three and a half decades later. Through it all, Horton continued to write, producing another volume of poetry, many uncollected poems, and a brief autobiography.

Although Horton is still in print, and he retains a strong following in his home state of North Carolina, he remains much less known than other early African-American authors such as Phillis Wheatley and Jupiter Hammon. I completed an English degree at a southern university, and still never came across any of his work. I'm glad to say that Poet does an excellent job of discussing the man, his unusual life, and his writing, which may well make him a more familiar name to a younger generation.

The writing is spare, but clear. Tate made his name as an illustrator, but in his previous foray into writing (It Jes' Happened: When Bill Traylor Started to Draw, 2012), he certainly displayed a facility with words, and he continues to exhibit that talent in Poet. I really felt Horton's determination, his crushing defeat, and his indomitable will while turning the pages.

As good as the text is, it's not going to win the Newbery -- no picture book is going to break through and take the prize, not in a year with Circus Mirandus and Echo and Moonpenny Island and The Jumbies. Some of the other committees may appreciate it, however, and I do hope there's room for it on the Notables list.


Publication in September by Peachtree.

2015 Contenders: The Right Word, by Jen Bryant

Although the earliest work that could be considered a thesaurus was written almost two millennia ago (On Synonyms, a volume written by Philo of Byblos, who died in 141), the first truly modern thesaurus didn't appear until until 1852, when Peter Mark Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases was first published. Nowadays, it's hard to find a person who hasn't used a thesaurus in some form -- and yet Roget himself is a little-discussed figure in popular circles.

Full disclosure: at ALA Annual last year in Las Vegas, Rachael and I scored an invitation to a dinner that Eerdmans was hosting in celebration of Jen Bryant, Melissa Sweet, and the forthcoming release of The Right Word. I got a chance to talk to both of them at length, and they're the most wonderful people that you could hope to meet. In fact, Melissa Sweet took it upon herself to make each of us name badges, each of which contained a small fragment from a 19th-century edition of Roget's Thesaurus. Mine is hanging proudly on my cubicle wall now, and it makes me smile every time I see it.

So yes, I'm very much predisposed to like The Right Word. But even when I try to look at it with more objective eyes, I come away from it thinking that this really is an excellent book. The Right Word begins in Roget's childhood, and traces his life from there. It includes information about his many endeavors -- Roget wasn't just a thesaurus writer, but a polymath who also published important works on natural history, medicine, electricity, and optical illusions. However, the book manages to keep its center by referring back to Roget's near-obsessive list-keeping, which began when he was only eight years old, and which culminated in the publication of the Thesaurus.

Indeed, the main problem with The Right Word from a Newbery perspective is similar to the problem with El Deafo: the text and the illustrations blend together to the point that analyzing just the text is almost impossible. The dialogue bubbles -- which are not designed to be read as part of the main text -- add layer upon layer of detail to the story, and Melissa Sweet's illustrations include both drawings and collages of Roget's various lists. Even the typesetting, which includes several passages with only a word or two on each line, serves to reinforce the theme of Roget's passion for order. Simply reading The Right Word aloud doesn't do it justice, and I don't know that the Newbery committee will be able to consider it in a way that would really allow its considerable strengths to shine.

I have, however, seen The Right Word show up on several Mock Caldecott lists, and the Sibert committee may well find a lot to love here as well. I hope it wins something; it's a brilliantly-designed book that sheds a great deal of light on its quirky, important subject.


Published in September by Eerdmans

2015 Contenders: Leontyne Price: Voice of a Century, by Carole Boston Weatherford

Leontyne Price: Voice of a Century is a spare, poetic biography of the woman who would eventually become (according to a BBC Music critic's poll) the greatest American soprano ever to record. As remarkable a feat as that is in and of itself, the fact that Leontyne Price was a black woman from Mississippi, born in 1927, raised the degree of difficulty exponentially. This book carefully emphasizes the magnitude of Price's achievements and her indomitably sunny spirit, while also mentioning the many people who aided her along her way.

Voice of a Century is the kind of biography that only provides a brief overview of its subject's career. Indeed, it essentially ends with Price's spectacular star turn in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Il Trovatore in 1961, when almost a quarter-century of her operatic career was still in front of her. This means that most of her Grammy Awards, her Emmy Award, her Presidential Medal of Freedom, her Kennedy Center Honors, and her National Medal of Arts all fall outside of the book's time frame. In its structure, if not particularly in its content, it reminded me of last year's You Never Heard of Willie Mays?!

Nonetheless, Voice of a Century does an excellent job of chronicling Price's rise to prominence. Carole Boston Weatherford's prose is conversational without being talky, and indeed, reads in places very much like a prose poem. Readers who enjoyed Pam Muñoz Ryan and Brian Selznick's Sibert Honor book When Marian Sang might well enjoy Voice of a Century, especially since Weatherford repeatedly makes clear how much of a debt Price owed to Marian Anderson.


Raul Colón's lovely illustrations add a great deal to the book, though the Newbery committee won't be able to consider them. In honesty, I'm not sure that much Newbery love is going to come for Voice of a Century -- as we've discussed before in this space, short, heavily-illustrated biographical nonfiction tends not to show up in the Newbery rolls, regardless of how well-written it may be. 

The Sibert, however, has been much more open to these kinds of books (see: Balloons over Broadway, A Splash of Red, Ballet for Martha, and of course, When Marian Sang), and if Voice of a Century is to be recognized, that's probably the most likely place. I hope it wins something -- it's an excellent book, and I really enjoyed reading it.


Published in December by Alfred A. Knopf / Random House

2015 Contenders: Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson

Brown Girl Dreaming is a memoir of Jacqueline Woodson's childhood, told in a sequence of poems. It begins at her birth in Ohio, covers her move to South Carolina, and another, later move to Brooklyn. The time period coincides with the heart of the Civil Rights Movement, and the tensions between Black and White, North and South, Secular and Sacred, and Old and New are notes that repeat in different combinations as the book moves forward.

What Brown Girl Dreaming does well, it does very well. Woodson's eye for arresting detail is on full display here -- the color of the dirt, the sound of playground rhymes, the taste of lemon chiffon ice cream. Her personal voice too is very strong; throughout the book, I had a firm sense of just who Woodson was as a child. The other characters are also well-drawn and described. Everyone in the book felt real, something that not even all memoirs accomplish.

I was less sold on the technical aspects of the book. Many of the more personal moments were in beautiful poetry, but the political aspects -- and, oddly enough, the parts about Woodson discovering her desire to become a writer -- felt prosy and a bit shopworn, hitting themes that have come up over and over again in children's literature of the past decade without seeming to add a particularly fresh perspective. Similarly, sometimes the line breaks worked marvelously, but sometimes I felt like they were inserted simply because the line was getting too long. And I'd echo the complaint that came up in discussions over at Heavy Medal, that the titles on the individual poems interrupt the flow of the book without adding much thematically or tonally.


Each individual poem is a sort of a vignette, and I'm unconvinced that this kaleidoscope approach works --- too many of them don't work to advance the narrative, which led me to question the editing. However, this was also a complaint that I had about No Crystal Stair, and most readers didn't agree with me then, so my opinion should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt.

Actually, No Crystal Stair isn't a bad point of comparison in general for Brown Girl Dreaming. BGD is being touted in many circles as the Newbery front-runner, and No Crystal Stair was also a highly-reviewed book (and one that ended up winning the Boston Globe-Horn Book award). I didn't like either of them nearly as much as the general consensus, and in both cases, my main criticisms were structural. It may simply be the case that, as with that previous title, I'm not necessarily the right reader for the book, and so my review shouldn't be given all that much weight.

Because the critical consensus for Brown Girl Dreaming has been so overwhelmingly positive, it's likely this will be one of the titles we choose for our Maryland Mock Newbery. I'm excited to hear the discussions about it, and I hope that listening to and participating in those discussions will help me further refine my opinions of this title.


Published in September by Nancy Paulsen Books / Penguin

2015 Contenders: The Pilot and the Little Prince, by Peter Sís

I really don't like writing reviews that involve me disliking something that everyone else loves. Not that that's stopped me from writing such reviews repeatedly, but I get nervous every time I have to do it. It requires me to marshal my facts, and to be extremely conscious of my biases as a reader -- and even then, I usually wind up wondering if I've just missed the point.

As you've probably guessed by now, that brings me to The Pilot and the Little Prince, the newest book by Peter Sís. It's nominally a biography of the French aviator and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, but I think my main failing as a reviewer is my insistence on reading it like a biography.

The book's layout is complicated and busy. The simple main text runs along the bottom of each page, with the vast majority of each leaf devoted to illustrations, timelines, maps, and further facts. The textual information in these larger sections is integrated into the pictures, and reading the words often requires rotating the book and carefully scanning the illustrations.

What this means is that reading The Pilot and the Little Prince like a traditional nonfiction book is almost impossible. There are no standard sidebars, no index, and no source notes. My ability to follow the text was constantly interrupted by my having to scrutinize the illustrations, and trying to go back and find a particular factoid was an exercise in frustration. "Presentation of Information!" I kept saying to myself. (Because yes, I'm the kind of person who recites the Newbery criteria in his private self-conversations.)

And yet, The Pilot and the Little Prince is getting excellent reviews, which I think can be ascribed to the greater willingness of many readers to appreciate it, not as a biography, but as a singular work of art. If you consider the book as an artistic tribute to Saint-Exupéry first, and as a biography a distant second, it starts to look a whole lot better. The detailed illustrations yield more and more surprises with each examination, and the whole thing comes across as a labor of deep, genuine love. If it didn't really "work" for me, that doesn't mean it wouldn't work for a reader more willing to spend that kind of time with it.

Does that make it a Newbery contender? I don't think so, no. It's too hard to separate the text from the illustrations, and I'm not sure the words are anywhere near as effective without the pictures in any case. I also don't think it's a good Sibert contender, especially given the complete lack of back matter. However, before you accept my opinion, I'd encourage you to look at The Pilot and the Little Prince for yourself.


Publication in May by Frances Foster Books / Farrar Straus Girous / Macmillan

2015 Contenders: Babe Conquers the World, by Rich Wallace and Sandra Neil Wallace

There's nothing sports fans like better than a good argument, so allow me to start one: who was the single best athlete in American history? Jim Thorpe? Jessie Owens? Jackie Robinson? Bo Jackson? Michael Phelps?

There's no definitive answer to the question, of course, but let's consider one other possibility: Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Over the course of her remarkable career, the Babe led her team to a national championship in basketball, won Olympic gold medals in the javelin and the 80m hurdles (as well as a silver in the high jump), won national titles in the javelin and the baseball throw, single-handedly won the national track and field championship (entering as a one-woman team, she scored more points than any other team), barnstormed as a baseball player, won a league championship as a bowler, co-founded the LPGA, and won multiple major golf championships -- including the 1954 US Women's Open, a title she captured after cancer surgery, while wearing a colostomy bag. She was a six-time winner of the Associated Press Woman Athlete of the Year, over a mind-breaking 22-year span (1932, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1950, 1954). Essentially, she was simultaneously LeBron James, Carl Lewis, Satchel Paige, and Tiger Woods.

Babe Conquers the World is an accessible yet detailed look at the life of this extraordinary athlete. It covers her many triumphs, as well as her challenges. Much like Amelia Lost from a few years ago, Babe Conquers the World doesn't shy away from its subject's faults -- Zaharias wasn't a particularly easy person to get along with, and the book notes this, while at the same time pointing out how difficult it was to be a female athlete in the first half of the twentieth century, and how hard Zaharias had to fight simply to have the opportunity to make a living.

The book is exhaustively documented and sourced; anyone who wants to follow the authors' research won't have any difficulty. It also includes a wealth of archival photographs, and though that's not of concern to the Newbery, it might be of interest to the Sibert committee.

I'm not sure it will be, as Babe Conquers the World isn't a "literary" work in the mold of something by Steve Sheinkin or Russell Freedman. Its odds of winning the Newbery, especially in what is shaping up to be a highly competitive year, are probably zero. But it's a great introduction to a fascinating figure, and I'd definitely purchase it and talk it up.


Publication in March by Calkins Creek Books

2014 Contenders: On a Beam of Light, by Jennifer Berne

Here it is -- the one that I feel is unequivocally the best nonfiction title of the year, the one that can stand with last year's best efforts, and that I'd love to see receive some serious Newbery discussion.

That last part isn't likely to happen, alas, because On a Beam of Light is not only a nonfiction title, but a picture book as well. Yet the book takes the life of Albert Einstein, a figure whose achievements aren't all that easy to explain to a child, and uses them as a framework for some of the most perceptive prose of the year. My favorite passage is on the page from which the book takes its title:

"And in his mind, right then and there, Albert was no longer on his bicycle, no longer on the country road...he was racing through space on a beam of light."

Reading lines like that, I'm on that beam of light as well.

It's not, of course, relevant to the Newbery discussion, but the illustrations by Vladimir Radunsky are the perfect counterpoint to the text, full of whimsy, poignance, and huge washes of negative space. That sort of thing is relevant to the Sibert committee, however, and Rachael and I were wondering today if this might indeed be a year when the Sibert winner is drawn from the ranks of the picture book nonfiction (as in 2012, when Balloons Over Broadway took the medal).

On a Beam of Light is one of our discussion titles for the Morris Seminar in January, and I can't wait to see what the other participants think of it. I also can't wait to talk about how much I love it!


Published in April by Chronicle Books

2014 Contenders: Becoming Ben Franklin, by Russell Freedman

What can one say about Russell Freedman, the unquestioned dean of American children's nonfiction writers? The man could fill a room with his awards, which include a Newbery (Lincoln: A Photobiography, 1988) and three Honors (The Wright Brothers, 1992; Eleanor Roosevelt, 1994; The Voice that Challenged a Nation, 2005); a Sibert (The Voice that Challenged a Nation, 2005) and an Honor (Lafayette and the American Revolution, 2011); a ridiculous five Golden Kites; the 1998 Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal; and a National Humanities Medal (2007). We're getting to the point where you could tell me that he has a Nobel Prize stashed underneath his couch cushions and I'd probably believe you.

Anyway, one of the side effects of being the illustration that the dictionary uses for "acclaimed" is that expectations for your work become high. Very high. Maybe unreachably high, which brings us to Freedman's latest effort, Becoming Ben Franklin.

BBF covers Franklin's entire life, from his birth in Boston to his death 84 years later. Freedman tries to give a balanced view of Franklin's dizzying array of accomplishments as a statesman, scientist, inventor, author, and printer -- and he largely succeeds. I've read a good deal of Franklin-related material, including his Autobiography, and Freedman does about as well in condensing his subject's incredible life into a children's book of less than 100 pages as I think it's possible to do.

However, I do have some quibbles with the book. The first chapter seemed weak to me, as it didn't leave me with the knowledge of why I should care about Franklin's life. That's not a huge issue for me as an adult reader, but for a child, who may not know a whole lot about who Franklin was, I really feel like more of a clearly stated thesis would be helpful up front.

Additionally, there is at least one instance where I'm not sure about the exactitude of the facts. On page 75, Freedman states, "Slavery in the United States would continue until America's Civil War and Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863." However, that's not actually true -- famously, the Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in the Confederate states, and the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery in the rest of the union, wasn't passed until December of 1865, months after the Civil War had ended. It's a small issue, but it does affect the Presentation of Information item in the Newbery criteria -- and it's especially odd coming from a writer who won the Newbery for his book about Lincoln.

Small issues aside, Becoming Ben Franklin is a very good book, a worthy addition to any library, and a fantastic introduction to one of the most wide-ranging American minds. However, I think it's a minor entry in Freedman's bibliography, one that doesn't quite reach the level of his stellar best work.


Published in March by Holiday House.

2014 Contenders: You Never Heard of Willie Mays?!, by Jonah Winter

Aside from taking in a game on a beautiful afternoon, there's nothing that diehard baseball fans (a group of which I count myself a proud member) love more than making lists -- and there's no list more fun to make than that of the greatest players of all time. However, there's only a handful of names one can make a reasonable case for putting at the top of that list: Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner for sure, and maybe Ted Williams, Oscar Charleston, Mickey Mantle, and (depending on how you feel about steroid use and sports) Barry Bonds. Oh, and Willie Mays -- the Say Hey Kid, the pride of the Giants, one of the most spectacular hitters and fielders ever to roam the diamond, and maybe the greatest.

You Never Heard of Willie Mays?! is written in the second person, as a conversational introduction to the legendary center fielder. Jonah Winter emphasizes Mays' importance in his historical moment, when the major leagues were still in the process of integration (Mays actually played a few seasons in the Negro Leagues as a teenager). He skillfully portrays Mays not only as a preternaturally gifted athlete, but as a tireless worker and ambassador for the game.

Winter makes the interesting choice of ending his story after the 1954 World Series, in which the 23-year-old Mays' spectacular play led the Giants to victory.  This leaves out the remaining 18 years of Mays' career -- which included two more World Series appearances, a second MVP award, and four home run titles -- as well as his eventual induction into the Hall of Fame.  I recognize that the narrative Winter has chosen to tell comes to a natural conclusion there, but I'm not sure I agree with the decision to confine the rest of Mays' brilliant career to the appendix.

I doubt that this particular volume will graze the Newbery list -- the writing is very good, but that hasn't helped other relatively short, heavily illustrated books in recent years (see Each Kindness, Twelve Kinds of Ice, Balloons over Broadway). Winter's previous book in a similar vein, You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?!, made the Notables list in 2010, however, and that seems like a more realistic projection for You Never Heard of Willie Mays?!


Published in January by Schwartz & Wade / Random House

2014 Contenders: My Adventures as a Young Filmmaker, by Andrew Jenks

Andrew Jenks is a reality star and documentary filmmaker, but the word that he repeatedly uses in My Adventures as a Young Filmmaker is "story." Jenks sees himself as a storyteller -- film is his medium of choice, but one gets the sense that he's more interested in the message than the medium. Perhaps that's one reason why his autobiographical book comes off better than those of many celebrities: even if print isn't Jenks's usual format, he's still telling a story.

Indeed, Jenks's distinctive voice is really what drives Adventures. He's brash, snarky, and sometimes even arrogant, but he's also painfully candid about his struggles, shortcomings, and occasional poor choices. His skill as a filmmaker and storyteller comes from his ability to empathize deeply with those around him, which comes across in his descriptions of the people at the nursing home where he shoots his first documentary, the small group of faithful friends who accompany him on his adventures, and his circle of supportive family members.

Adventures has a breezy charm, even though not all portions of the book are equally engaging. That might just be an inherent risk of the subject matter -- to me, at least, it's more interesting to read about Jenks as a failing film school student in pursuit of his left-field idea of making a movie about himself moving into a nursing home than it is to see him making docs about star musicians and going to the VIP section at clubs. Sometimes, it's the pursuit of success that holds interest, rather than the success itself.

I don't really know what the awards committees will make of My Adventures as a Young Filmmaker. It hits the upper end of the Newbery age range, but it's much more "popular" than "literary," as nonfiction goes, and I don't think it's going to receive real consideration there. The Sibert is notoriously resistant to pop culture biographies -- unless you think When Marian Sang or The Voice That Challenged a Nation counts, none have been honored in the 13-year history of the award. The YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults did name Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing as its 2011 winner, so maybe Jenks' book has a better shot there. Realistically, however, I think it's more likely that Adventures has the same fate as something like last year's Face Book, which didn't win, place, or show in any of the major awards, but did get named to the Notables list, and won a wide readership.

I can't make a good argument for putting Adventures over this year's top Newbery contenders so far, but I do hope it's recognized in some way -- or at least, that it finds its way into the hands of the readers who will enjoy it.


Published in March by Scholastic

2014 Contenders: Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies, by Nell Beram & Carolyn Boriss-Krimsky

It's hard for me to think of another major artist as divisive as Yoko Ono. When you combine the reactions to her work in visual and performance art, writing, and music, as well as her oft-maligned presence in later sessions by the Beatles, even Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, and Marcel Duchamp start to look uncontroversial.

But make no mistake, Ono is a major artist. Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies makes this case eloquently, discussing her role as a progenitor of conceptual art, a pioneering feminist, and a genuinely forward-thinking musician. (Laugh at that last one if you want, but did you realize that Ono has had 10 singles hit #1 on the US Dance charts?) The book takes a straight chronological approach, which is probably a good choice, as it lets the reader follow Ono's progression from lonely child, to art-world enfant terrible, to That Lady Who Must Have Broken Up The Beatles, and on to her place now as a highly respected artistic elder stateswoman. It's not shy about detailing some of the more unpleasant moments in Ono's life either; in that respect, it reminds me a bit of Candace Fleming's refreshingly honest Amelia Lost.

The prose is clean and clear, and makes good use of liberal quotations from Ono's own work. Conceptual art isn't necessarily easy for a child reader to grasp, but Nell Beram and Carolyn Boriss-Krimsky do an excellent job of integrating needed definitions and background into the body of the text without drawing undue attention to them, or resorting to distracting sidebars. Readers who don't know Ono's work at all -- or who know it only as a punchline -- will walk away from Collector of Skies with a profound understanding and appreciation for her art.

Despite being an excellent biography, Collector of Skies probably isn't going to win anything from the Newbery committee. It's a very traditionally-structured bio, and in recent years, the nonfiction that's received Newbery love has tended to be the kind that's more deliberately literary, using techniques from fiction, or paying special attention to the way the story in question interacts with other stories (see: Hitler Youth, Claudette Colvin, Bomb). Depending on the competition, however, the Sibert committee may well find a lot to like here.


Published in January by Amulet / Abrams.

2014 Contenders: Etched in Clay: The Life of Dave, Enslaved Potter and Poet, by Andrea Cheng

We know comparatively little about the life of Dave, the enslaved potter. We know roughly when he was born (around 1801), when he died (around 1870), and where he lived (South Carolina). We know that he lost a leg when he was about 35 years old, and that he was a skilled potter whose works were (and are still) prized by collectors. Most notably, we know that he could read and write, because he carved his name and some short poems into the clay of his own pots. 

In a series of dramatic monologues, Andrea Cheng fleshes out these sparse details and shapes them into a poignant glimpse into the world of this remarkable artisan and poet. Writing from multiple perspectives, she gives the reader a panoramic view of the social and political realities that circumscribed the life of an enslaved man in 19th century South Carolina. In understated verse, she recreates the key moments of Dave's life, including enough sensory imagery to anchor the story without bogging it down in detail. Woodcut illustrations, also by Cheng, mesh well with the plainspoken text.

Overall, Etched in Clay is an effective and engaging verse biography. It is worth noting that Cheng takes a completely different approach than Laban Carrick Hill and Bryan Collier did in their 2011 Coretta Scott King Honor Book, Dave the Potter. Where Hill and Collier focused narrowly on Dave's work as a potter, Cheng attempts to paint a much broader portrait of the man and his times. It's an ambitious tactic, and one that leads to some pitfalls.

My biggest issue with multiple-perspective verse novels is how damnably hard it can be to distinguish among the speakers, and Etched in Clay is no exception. Without contextual clues, I think I would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between Dave and any of the other characters. Part of the problem is Cheng's decision to standardize the language for modern readers. It works well in practical terms, but since everyone is speaking modern American English, they all end up sounding the same. That creates a jarring contrast with the snippets she includes of Dave's own rough, lyrical poetry.

My other issue is with the inclusion of historical background. It's very difficult to throw in details about law and social norms within the confines of a dramatic monologue, without turning it into an instance of As You Know, Bob. That leads to clunkers like the following: "Just be forewarned / while allowing our slaves / to read is our duty / teaching them to write / is punishable / by South Carolina law."

These are relatively minor quibbles, but they will probably keep Etched in Clay from attaining the status of "most distinguished" for me. I will surprised, however, if we don't see this one on the Notables list at the very least.

Published in January be Lee and Low Books

2013 Contenders: Face Book, by Chuck Close

First things first: Face Book has no shot at the Newbery, given that without the illustrations, the whole thing falls apart. But I wanted to talk about it anyway, because it's a kind of book that I think often slips through the awards cracks, despite its value.

As is fitting, given its subject, Face Book is heavily illustrated, not only with photographs of Close's artwork, but also with pictures of him in his studio, as well as personal photos. The book's centerpiece is actually a set of fourteen of Close's self-portraits, cut into thirds so that they can be mixed up, sort of like those old playground toys that let you put the head of a giraffe on a lion's body and an ostrich's feet. (The front cover shows one possible combination.) It's an excellent tool that lets children see how different art media can be used.

It's also, however, the sort of tool that often gets considered "gimmicky." Nonfiction books that test the boundaries of what a book can do don't tend to be recognized for the major awards. Often, that's a wise choice, but sometimes, I think it lets something genuinely useful go unrecognized.

Face Book is structured as an interview with Close, and the acknowledgments state that the book is based on an actual interview in which several 5th-graders were able to ask Close some questions. As such, most of the words are Close's, and he's listed as the author, but it's clear that the book was compiled and put together by someone else (the names Joan Sommers, Amanda Freymann, and Ascha Drake show up in the fine print of the copyright notice). Literary awards selectors don't generally like authorship by committee, so that's a second strike against Face Book being recognized right there.

Nonetheless, Face Book does a great job of getting inside an artist's head, explaining how Close chooses his subjects, discussing why he uses so many different media, and even giving readers an inside look into the process of overcoming his disability (Close suffered a spinal artery collapse in 1988, and lost much of the use of his legs and arms). I think the interview format and the liberal use of Close's art will make this a highly accessible book for young readers. Of all the children's biographies of artists that I've read, it's certainly the one that gets the closest (no pun intended!) to its subject.

So, despite the fact that it's constructed in a way that essentially precludes it from awards consideration, Face Book is a highly successful work. I'd recommend it in a trice to anyone with an interest in modern art.


Published in April by Abrams Books for Young Readers

2013 Contenders: Temple Grandin, by Sy Montgomery

Temple Grandin is a fascinating woman. As Sy Montgomery points out, she is the only person to have been honored by both PETA and the Meat Industry. Her insights into the inner lives of livestock have revolutionized practices in the cattle industry, from feed lots to slaughterhouses. And she has accomplished all of it while struggling with moderate to severe autism - a condition that was even more poorly understood when Grandin was a child than it is now.

Montgomery's account of Grandin's life is intensely readable. The lively anecdotes and firsthand quotes lend it an appealing sense of immediacy, and help to paint a nuanced portrait of a complex personality. Above all, the subject of autism is treated thoughtfully. Grandin has made it quite clear that she feels her autism is a gift that allows her to see the world in a special way. Growing up with autism in the 1950's, however, she also encountered a great deal of cruelty and misunderstanding. Montgomery does an excellent job of explaining both the blessings and challenges of living with autism. That deviation from the typical "overcoming obstacles" story arc elevates this biography well above the typical disability narrative.

Montgomery also treats the livestock industry fairly. A vegetarian herself, she unflinchingly reports the cruel practices that take place in some farms and processing plants. She is equally quick, however, to acknowledge and applaud those who have made significant improvements by following Grandin's guidelines. The back matter includes an excellent list of resources on both autism and animal welfare for those who wish to do further research, as well as "Temple's Advice for Kids on the Spectrum." 

The book's one real weak point is its organization. The lack of a table of contents is disorienting, and since the narrative jumps backwards and forwards in time, the inclusion of dates would have been helpful.

Newbery? Heck, I don't know. I will openly admit that I have very little sense of what makes a good informational Newbery winner, but I suspect this isn't it. In her five-star Goodreads review, Nina Lindsay notes that there's "nothing flashy about this book," and I think that's worth noting. Though it excels in character development, I think it's too stylistically plain-spoken to catch the committee's attention. 

Published in April through Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

2013 Contenders: Abraham Lincoln & Frederick Douglass, by Russell Freedman

Image courtesy Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Let this be said -- no one writes history for children as well as Russell Freedman, and he's got a stack of awards to prove it (the Newbery Medal, three Newbery Honors, a Sibert Honor, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, and the National Humanities Medal). In his newest book, Freedman returns to the subject of his Newbery winner, Lincoln: A Photobiography, and adds nuance and insight by bringing in another key figure of the time, abolitionist leader (and former slave) Frederick Douglass.

Despite the somewhat awkward title, Abraham Lincoln & Frederick Douglass: The Story Behind an American Friendship is an exceptional book. Freedman is a master of using simple language to communicate with children in a way they will understand, but without talking down to them. He respects his audience, and maybe that's why his work is so successful. Here, he takes a distant, confusing moment in history and, through the intertwining narratives of his protagonists, makes it easy for his audience to understand.

I'd recommend it in a heartbeat to any kid with even a marginal interest in US History. As a Newbery contender, I'm less certain. It's been ages since the Newbery committee recognized more than one nonfiction title in any given year -- unless one chooses to think of poetry or folklore as nonfiction, I think the last time was 1951, when Elizabeth Yates won the award for Amos Fortune, Free Man, and Jeanette Eaton's Gandhi: Fighter Without a Sword, and Clara Ingram Judson's Abraham Lincoln, Friend of the People both honored. With that in mind, I don't think Abraham Lincoln & Frederick Douglass is as distinguished of a contribution to children's literature as Moonbird. You can make the argument that Freedman is a better prose stylist than Phillip Hoose, and I might even agree with you, but I felt like Moonbird did a superior job in relating its subject to the world of human emotions and experience, even though it's naturally more difficult to do that with migratory shorebirds than the civil war and the end of slavery. Indeed, if I have any criticism to make of Lincoln & Douglass, it's that I wish it had spent a little more time exploring why what these two men did 150 years ago still has resonance and significance today.

Again, this isn't to say that I don't think highly of Lincoln & Douglass, only that I think there is a stronger contender for the one "allotted" Newbery nonfiction slot. The committee may feel differently though, and the Sibert committee may find this title especially interesting as well.

Publication in June through Clarion (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

2013 Contenders: The Fairy Ring, by Mary Losure

I was really excited about this book. I love fairies. I love hoaxes. I love fervent childhood friendships that border on the unsettling. And perhaps most of all, I love narrative nonfiction.

Here's a little confession: I'm not so good at reading straight nonfiction. Never have been. I promise you that most of what I know about European history comes from Jane Austen, Victor Hugo, and Charles Dickens. So when I saw that this book was laid out like a novel, I expected to be both informed and entertained (which is, I believe, my birthright as an American - thank you, Jon Stewart!).

I was disappointed. Maybe I've grown too accustomed to the "lead with the cliffhanger" style, as in Amelia Lost, but the straight chronological organization of the book kind of killed the suspense. The reader knows from the outset exactly how the photos are faked.

The notes at the end indicate the author's meticulous research, but I don't think the narrative form showcases that very well either. It would be difficult for a child reader to tell which details are partially imagined and which are taken from primary sources. For example, Losure describes in detail how Frances felt about her first glimpse of England, but credits no one source for this information. On the other hand, her description of Elsie's "wide beaming smile" is a direct quote.

I was even more troubled by the layout. For a book so heavily dependent on its visual elements, I thought the photographs were sloppily placed, often appearing nowhere near the text describing them. Unless I'm very confused (always a possibility), one photo of Elsie shows up an entire chapter too early.

Losure does do a very good job of characterizing Elsie and Frances sympathetically but honestly, and of explaining the historical circumstances that could allow them to perpetuate a hoax on this grand a scale. I'd put this in my library's collection, and I'd probably even booktalk it. But I wouldn't recommend it for an award.

2012 Contenders: Amelia Lost, by Candace Fleming

The Newbery guidelines specifically state that "the committee shall consider all forms of writing—fiction, non-fiction, and poetry," and the very first Newbery medal was, of course, awarded to a work of nonfiction, The Story of Mankind. However, in anything like recent years, it's an extreme rarity that anything other than a novel receives the top honor. In fact, since 1956, when Jean Lee Latham's lightly fictionalized biography Carry On, Mr. Bowditch won the medal, it's only happened four times: twice for poetry (A Visit to William Blake's Inn in 1982, and Joyful Noise in 1989), once for drama (Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! in 2008), and once for nonfiction (Lincoln: A Photobiography in 1988). It just doesn't happen very often.

Nonfiction may be the toughest sell of all for the Newbery. Most nonfiction, after all, is essentially informational. The kinds of adult nonfiction that we think of as making a "distinguished contribution to literature" tend to be essays or "creative" nonfiction, things written by the Annie Dillards and John McPhees and Studs Terkels of the world. Precious little of that appears for a children's audience; what's published is almost entirely "nonliterary." Heck, even, though I greatly admire Russell Freedman's work and consider him essentially the best at what he does, the only nonfiction award in the past five and a half decades still doesn't look all that good in hindsight, what with 1988 being The Year That Hatchet Didn't Win.

With that in mind, one of the books that is getting a lot of buzz in the week leading up to the Newbery is Candace Fleming's Amelia Lost: The Life And Disappearance Of Amelia Earhart. The illustrious Elizabeth Bird is even picking it as this year's winner. It was one of the candidates for the Maryland Mock Newbery, and though, for the record, it was the one I liked, I'm uncomfortable with giving it the award.

This is despite the fact that, what it sets out to do, it does very well. I find most children's biographies tiresome, especially given that they are often forced to sanitize the more problematic portions of their subjects' lives. Amelia Lost, on the other hand, is a captivating read, one that makes excellent use of chapters that intercut Amelia's life story with her disappearance and its immediate aftermath. The structure goes a long way toward keeping the story interesting for a young reader, and for this reader as well -- no mean feat, given that we already know even before picking up the book that the ending is as predetermined as that of the Titanic.

It also doesn't shy away from Amelia's downsides. She was unafraid to take risks, a champion of women's rights, and an important figure in American history; she was also a mediocre pilot, a master manipulator of the media, and prone to skimping on preparation -- which is a large part of the reason that her last flight ended in disaster. All of this is covered in the book, in a sensitive and honest manner.

I think my problem is that, though it tells a good story, it doesn't transcend the story it tells, which is what makes something -- and especially something nonfictional -- a "distinguished literary contribution" to me. It was a great biography, but it wasn't great literature, not in the way that I'd hope for in my Newbery winners. It told me the facts, and told them very well, but it didn't spend much time meditating on what the facts mean, either directly or indirectly; the last half-page was about Amelia's legacy, but that was essentially it. I contrast it with something like Amos Fortune, Free Man, the 1951 winner, in which the story of Amos Fortune's life becomes a meditation on the nature of freedom itself.

I may be alone in thinking this way, and in a year that's generally been regarded as weak and without a clear winner, Amelia Lost may well take home the medal. But while I like the book and think it's well constructed, it doesn't hit the Newbery mark for me.

And that's my two cents.