Newbery Wayback Machine: Gay-Neck, The Story of a Pigeon, by Dhan Gopal Mukerji (1928)

 

Gay-Neck, The Story of a Pigeon begins, at least in my copy, with a brief dedicatory letter from the author to one Suresh Chandra Banerji, Esq. A portion of this letter reads:

"For a pigeon, life is a repetition of two incidents: namely, quest of food and avoidance of attacks by its enemies. If the hero of the present book repeats his escapes from attacks by hawks, it is because that is the sort of mishap that becomes chronic in the case of pigeons."

This is what I believe is called "giving away the game." The plot, such as it is, is mostly Gay-Neck (so named for the patch of iridescent feathers on his throat) flying, being attacked by something, and then escaping. To be fair, Mukerji does switch it up more than his note lets on -- for variety, Gay-Neck not only escapes from hawks, but also owls, a buzzard-hawk called a Baz, and WWI airplanes trying to shoot him down.

There is a sort of larger story, in which Mukerji, who tells this story as if it's autobiographical, hatches Gay-Neck from an egg, trains him in homing, rehabilitates him from injury, and finally sends him off from India to the European front in WWI to work as a carrier pigeon. This last part traumatizes Gay-Neck so that, after a particularly harrowing mission, he refuses to fly anymore, and is invalided back home, until he's cured of his fear at a Buddhist(?) monastery. 

The most interesting parts, though, have to do with Mukerji himself. His parents live in Calcutta, but spend part of the year in the Himalayan village of Dentam. Mukerji goes up there with them, but spends all of his time out in the jungle with a hunter named Ghond -- whose connection to Mukerji is never explained -- who teaches him to do things like hunt enraged water buffalo, hide from crazed elephants, and climb up to eagles' nests. Why is he learning to do this? Who knows! What do his parents think? They don't seem to think anything, until the very end when Gay-Neck comes back ahead of Mukjeri, and his parents worry that their son might be dead. I read the entire book, and I still have no idea why this city kid and pigeon fancier is spending all of his free time reenacting Kipling with this guy. 

Gay-Neck wasn't Mukerji's first book, and since one of the earlier titles is called Ghond, the Hunter, it's possible that this gets explained there. But in the form that Gay-Neck was published in...let's just say that I've read The Grey King, The High King, and Dicey's Song, and this might still be the Newbery that "stands alone" the least. 

Be that as it may, Gay-Neck was also a milestone in this history of the Newbery Medal. Dhan Gopal Mukerji, who had emigrated the US as a young man, would become the first person of color to win the award. (He would, alas, also be the only one to win the award until Virginia Hamilton in 1975(!); it's an unfortunate truth that sometimes progress happens slowly.) The one classic from the year, A.A. Milne's Now We Are Six, wasn't eligible, so Gay-Neck was probably a fair choice, as odd a book as it is.

Also, this is just a guess, but I think it's safe money that Gay-Neck is Bert's favorite Newbery winner.

"If you tell me more about this Ghond fellow, I'll show you my paper clip collection."

Newbery Wayback Machine: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor (1977)

Cassie Logan lives with her family -- her parents, her three brothers, her grandmother, and a family friend, Mr. Morrison -- in rural Mississippi during the Great Depression. These are hard times and a hard place for a Black family, but the Logans have something that serves as their anchor -- four hundred acres of land, which they work and protect with fierceness and joy. However, neither the bonds of family nor the grounding of the land can save Cassie from a hard education in the racism of her surroundings. Incident after incident drives this point home, until a climatic summer night involving a robbery, a lynching attempt, and a fire that threatens everything the Logans have.

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry puts the reader so firmly in its setting that I could almost feel the red dust between my toes. This also extends to the characters, each of whom seemed three-dimensional and real. Each of Cassie's family members, all the way from Big Ma to her youngest brother, Little Man, have their own hopes and fears, dreams and desires. The secondary characters also come alive, with even the worst of them, such as the odious White storekeeper Kaleb Wallace, remaining rooted in reality. It's hard to overstate how well Mildred D. Taylor describes the place, time, and people in this novel.

As legendary children's literature critic Zena Sutherland once wrote (in a positive overview of the novel), "[Roll of Thunder] is not an unflawed book, but it is a memorable one." There are, indeed, some places where it's possible to quibble with the plotting; most notable to me is Little Man and Cassie's reaction to seeing their race written inside their school readers, which felt to me like it happens way too early in the book, given the way the overall plot arc involves the children coming to a realization of how permeated with racism the world around them is. But overall, the book works so well that my mind didn't linger on any plot difficulties or other blemishes.

1976 was a strong year for American children's literature. The 1977 Newbery Committee listed two honor books, Abel's Island, by William Steig, and A String in the Harp, by Nancy Bond; other well-regarded titles from the year include Frog and Toad All Year, by Arnold Lobel; The Missing Piece, by Shel Silverstein; and Summer of the Monkeys, by Wilson Rawls. Even in that company, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry stands as a worthy winner, and an enduring classic in the Newbery canon.

2021 Contenders: Blue Skies, by Anne Bustard

Life is complicated for fifth-grader Glory Bea Bennett. Her father was lost on Omaha Beach, and is listed as MIA -- but Glory Bea is sure that he's coming home, just like he promised. This means that she isn't taking much of a shine to Randall Horton, her father's old friend from the military who seems to be taking too much of an interest in Glory Bea's mother. But one of the Merci Boxcars -- forty-nine railroad boxcars sent to the USA from the grateful people of France -- is going to be stopping in Glory Bea's hometown of Gladiola, Texas, on its way to the state capital in Austin. Glory Bea is sure that boxcar will bring her father home.

I had a hard time fully engaging with Blue Skies. Part of this, if I'm being honest, was because reading about Glory Bea constantly reminded me that I'd already encountered that particular piece of wordplay in another children's novel. But more so, it was because I felt like Blue Skies never fully took flight. Many of the plot points seemed awfully familiar to me, from a child character refusing to believe that a family member who perished in WWII is actually dead, to the trauma resulting from combat service in WWII, to a child trying to break up their parent's new relationship.

A well-worn plot can, of course, be magic in the right hands, if the details, setting, and characters bring it to life. Probably the area in which Blue Skies does best is the setting -- the (fictional) town of Gladiola rang true to me, and the bits about the Merci Boxcars do a great job of highlighting a nearly-forgotten slice of American history. Overall, however, I often felt like I was having trouble remembering the book even while I was reading it.

It's possible that readers with an affection for historical fiction or mid-20th-century Americana may find and love Blue Skies. It's hard for me to imagine that it will garner a mass following though, or that it will tick enough boxes for the Newbery committee to show it some love.


Publication in March by Simon & Schuster

2020 Contenders: The Long Ride, by Marina Budhos

Jamila Clarke, Josie Rivera, and Francesca George live in Queens, New York, in 1971. Though their neighborhood is majority white, all three girls are mixed-race. This year, the three friends will be entering middle school, but even more changes are in the air. A school busing initiative has been enacted, and Jamila and Josie will be making the long trek to attend a school in a majority-black neighborhood; Francesca's parents are choosing instead to send her to a private school. Against this backdrop, our heroines will struggle with family drama, navigating relationships with boys, school politics, and more.

Probably too much more, to tell the truth. As I was reading The Long Ride, I felt that it was trying to stuff too many themes and plot points into a book that's right around 200 pages. Some of the subplots are so briefly developed that they might as well not be there (it's hard to remember that Jamila's service as campaign manager for an acquaintance's bid for class president even happened), while others seem rushed or less than fully explored. This also affects the pacing, which I thought had a certain stop-start nature that worked against the story.

The book that The Long Ride reminded me of most was Glory Be, Augusta Scattergood's 2012 novel. Both volumes are exceptional in the way that they conjure up a specific place and time, and help the reader feel what it was like to be a child there and then. Both attempt to meld a story about family relationships and friend dynamics with larger issues of civil rights, racism, and justice. And, to be honest, neither book is really able to achieve this goal; they both end up having bitten off more than they're able to chew.

Marina Budhos's previous work has been for adult and young adult readers, and she's received starred reviews, nominations, and awards for many of those books. If The Long Ride doesn't quite hold together, it may be that Budhos is still becoming comfortable with writing books for a younger age group. I don't think The Long Ride will seriously contend for the Newbery, but it does make me curious about the next story that Budhos will choose to tell.

Digressions: Those Who Run in the Sky, by Aviaq Johnston

Piturniq, an Inuk youth, has begun making a name for himself in his village. He is a talented hunter, and Tagaaq, an elder, is training him to be the next village leader. Pitu's talents don't stop there; with the proper guidance, Tagaaq believes that Pitu will be able to serve as a shaman. However, the shaman who would be able to train Pitu disappeared years ago, and no one knows where he might be.

One day, while Pitu is out hunting, a blizzard hits. He manages to survive the storm, only to find himself transported to the world of the spirits -- a dangerous place filled with frightening beings of enormous power. It will take all of his skill -- as well as finding the right allies -- if Pitu is to make it back home to his village, his family, and the woman he loves.

I found myself captivated by the world of Those Who Run in the Sky. Aviaq Johnston, herself an Inuk author, perfectly conveys the arctic setting and Inuit culture without compromising them or watering them down. The back matter includes a helpful glossary and a thoughtful author's note, but it's entirely possible to enjoy the book without having to constantly refer back. The setup for the main plot is fairly long, but I didn't have any trouble with the pacing -- and the last 50 pages are a thrilling burst of adrenaline.

Those Who Run in the Sky is more YA than juvenile, but I think you can argue that it scrapes the top of the Newbery age range. If I were evaluating the book for the Newbery and using the award criteria, I'd note that it's outstanding in its interpretation of theme, development of plot, and especially, delineation of setting. The delineation of characters is somewhat weaker, and though the style is appropriate, the prose overall is more workmanlike than exceptional for most of the novel. Those Who Run in the Sky was published in 2017, and I would have loved to have included it in our Maryland Mock Newbery reading list that year. I don't know that I would have voted for it over Landscape with Invisible Hand (my favorite from that list), or Orphan Island (our MMN winner), but I think it would have sparked some fascinating discussions. (For what it's worth, recognizing that it's just my opinion, and Your Mileage May Vary And Probably Will, I do think I would have voted for Those Who Run in the Sky over that year's actual Newbery winner, Hello, Universe.)

Sadly, Those Who Run in the Sky wasn't eligible for the Newbery, as Aviaq Johnston is from Nunavut, and still lives in Canada. If I could change one rule about the Newbery, it would actually be the prohibition against Canadian authors specifically; the American Library Association has many Canadian members, and the ALA annual conference has actually been held in Canada six different times (most recently in 2003, as an ALA/CLA joint conference). It frustrates me that we welcome participation from Canadian librarians on our committees and boards, but don't allow Canadian authors to compete for what's possibly the most prestigious literary award we hand out.

Alas, I don't make the Newbery rules. What I can do is encourage you to read this book, buy it for your library, and get it into the hands of kids who will appreciate it. A sequel, Those Who Dwell Below, was just published last month, and I'm excited to see how Pitu's story continues beyond the confines of this novel.


Published in 2017 by Inhabit Media

2020 Contenders: Indian No More, by Charlene Willing McManis with Traci Sorell

The United States historically hasn't, to put it mildly, done a great job of treating Native Americans well. Many of the worst offenses are well known to students of American history: the Trail of Tears, the Great Sioux War, the Wounded Knee Massacre. Some, however, haven't received as much attention, and remain little-known to most Americans outside of the Native American community.

The latter category includes, among others, the so-called Indian Termination Policy of the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, the Federal government unilaterally ended its recognition of over 100 Native American tribes, ceasing to recognize those tribes' reservations and land claims, and cutting off all Federal aid. Congress also passed the Indian Relocation Act of 1956, which provided some financial benefits and vocational training for Native Americans who would move from reservation land to urban centers. It did this at the cost, however, of breaking up communities, and placing Native Americans in areas where racial discrimination was often heavy; additionally, not all of the promised benefits always materialized for Native Americans who entered the program, and many participants ended up in low-wage jobs with little hope for advancement. The Termination Policy was ugly, and the Native American community had essentially no say in designing or administering it. They did, however, organize to fight back against it, and by 1968, President Lyndon Johnson was publicly calling for the policy to be ended. Though the US began re-recognizing some tribes as early as 1973, the policy wasn't officially abandoned until 1988(!).

This brings us to Indian No More, a novel that is set during the Termination period. It's narrated by Regina Petit, whose Umpqua family lives on the Oregon reservation of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. After the Grand Ronde's recognition is terminated, Regina's family moves to Los Angeles to try to take advantage of the Indian Relocation Act. Regina's father is excited by the prospect of moving to the city, but the rest of the family is less enthused -- especially Chich, Regina's grandmother. As the story progresses, opportunities and new friends do await in the city. However, so do culture shock, racism, and family tensions over preserving their Umpqua identity.

Indian No More has a fascinating, though bittersweet, genesis. Charlene Willing McManis, who was, in the words of her biographical note in the book, "of Umpqua tribal heritage and enrolled in the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde," came to a writing career late in life. This book, her only novel, was honed in a We Need Diverse Books mentorship with Margarita Engle, and picked up by Tu Books, a Lee & Low imprint. It's based on McManis's own childhood experiences; her family also moved to L.A. after her tribe's termination.

Sadly, McManis died in 2018, before the book was entirely finished. Before her passing, McManis personally asked her friend Traci Sorell to complete the manuscript. (Sorell's name may be a familiar one to our readers, as her We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga picked up a Sibert Honor this year.) Fortunately, Sorell, an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, was able to fulfill this request, and bring the book to a state ready for publication.

As far as the Newbery goes, I doubt Indian No More will end up on the stand -- though the setting and the cultural research are magnificent, the plot meanders a bit, and the prose doesn't stand out as exceptional to me; in the kind of strong field we have this year, it probably won't rise to the very top. What I do hope is that libraries purchase this book and that many, many children read it, hearing a story that they probably don't know yet, but that needs to be told.


Publication in September by Tu Books / Lee & Low

2020 Contenders: A Place to Belong by Cynthia Kadohata

Hanako's family spent four years in U.S. internment camps during World War II, and now they are leaving America for Japan. They will live with Hanako's paternal grandparents on a farm outside of Hiroshima. Arriving in Japan, Hanako and her family are appalled at the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb that the United States dropped on the city. At her grandparents' house Hanako is surrounded with love, but the family is very poor, and food is a constant concern. Hanako's parents and grandparents also wonder what will happen to Hanako and her younger brother Akira. In the United States, they didn't have much money, but they had options to better their lives. In Japan, they will most likely become tenant farmers, like their grandparents and many generations before them. But Hanako and Akira are still American citizens, and though their parents renounced their citizenship, there is a chance that they can get it back. Should the family try to return to America, even if that means starting over with nothing?

In this gentle book, it's the characters who really shine. Hanako's Jiichan (grandfather) and Baachan (grandmother) are the sweetest little old people ever, and I just wanted to give both of them a hug. But each member of Hanako's family is nuanced and complex, grappling with big questions. Hanako herself deals with fitting into a different culture, as one might expect from the book description, but she also struggles with her impulse to be compassionate, balanced with her own family's privations. Should she give food to a bomb-scarred war orphan? What if it means that her own little brother will go hungry that night? This concentration on emotions and morality necessitates an inward focus, so there's not a lot of action in the book's plot. In some ways, this is an ur-Newbery book: deeply contemplative historical fiction with a female protagonist, with strong character development at the expense of plot. I'm not trying to denigrate the book; just saying that it follows a venerable tradition of strong, well-written Newbery contenders.

I don't think this book is well-served by either its nondescript title or its bland brown and yellow cover, but of course, neither of those factors has any bearing on its Newbery eligibility. A Place to Belong received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, and Booklist, and though it's up against strong competition for the Newbery, I think it has at least earned a spot at the discussion table.

Published in May by Atheneum Books

2020 Contenders: Sweeping Up the Heart, by Kevin Henkes

For the first time since 2014 Newbery Honor book The Year of Billy Miller, we have another chapter book from The Henk. In Sweeping Up the Heart, we follow a week in the life of 12-year-old Amelia Albright, an aspiring clay artist with a dead mother, a grieving and emotionally unavailable father, and a new friend named Casey, the nephew of the owner of her favorite art studio. Adventures ensue when Casey claims to see a "sign" from Amelia's mother -- which may or may not be the mother herself. This being a Kevin Henkes book, however, the important adventures are interior, taking place within Amelia's heart and mind.

Sweeping Up the Heart reminded me a lot of Junonia, Henkes' 2011 novel. Both novels have female protagonists who don't feel like their vacations are going exactly as they would have wished; both deal with themes of growing up and change; and both feel hushed and subdued even during the most "action-packed" moments. If you liked Junonia, you'll almost certainly enjoy Sweeping; if you found Junonia to be a low-stakes exercise in self-pity...then I don't really agree with you, but I can definitely say that, while you might like Sweeping better, you probably won't love it.

Kevin Henkes' work has always felt strangely out of time to me, as if it were being written from a close-but-not-quite parallel universe, or being sent forward from my own childhood. Henkes legendarily writes all of his books on a typewriter that his wife owned as a teenager (and does the illustrations for his picture books on a light box that he got for Christmas as a child), and his work has a sort of "vintage" feel to it. Sweeping Up the Heart is set in 1999, and while the temporal setting does allow Casey to express his fears about Y2K, it also felt to me like it allowed Henkes to tell his story without the background distractions of cell phones, social media, and omnipresent digital cameras, all of which would have complicated the atmospheric, whisper-quiet story.

Henkes is famous for his incisive, pitch-perfect characterization; I do not believe there is another author currently working who is as capable of actually getting inside the head of a child and understanding her hopes, dreams, and fears. Amelia certainly is one of Henkes' triumphs, but every other character in the story also comes across as someone you'd recognize if you met them in the street.

It's hard for me to evaluate the Newbery chances of Sweeping Up the Heart. It's a gem of a book with perfect craftsmanship evident in every line; it's also a deeply inward-looking book in a year in which I'm not sure that will be rewarded, one that takes few risks, and doesn't break any new ground for Henkes. The Henk's legions of fans will love this one, and every library should buy a copy. The competition may be too stiff for it to take the gold medal, however.


Published March 19, 2019 by Greenwillow/HarperCollins

2019 Contenders: The Button War, by Avi

Patryk lives in a village in rural Poland, deep in the forest. His days are spent attending the village's tiny school, helping his father, who is a wheelwright, and engaging in hijinks with his six friends: Drugi, Makary, Raclaw, Ulryk, Wojtex, and Jurek. The village exists in near-total isolation; aside from the presence of a garrison of Russian soldiers, little from the outside world ever reaches into Patryk's life. However, two critical events change everything. First, World War I arrives with violence, beginning with a German airplane that destroys the school. Second, the darkly charismatic Jurek comes up with a dare, in which the boys have to steal "the best button" from the soldiers' uniforms. The winner will be the "Button King," to whom the other boys will have "to bow down." As the novel proceeds, the war gradually destroys their entire village, and the dare gradually destroys the boys.

That previous sentence, by the way, is not an exaggeration. This is a dark, dark book -- dark enough that I'm not sure I agree with the publisher's suggested age range of 10-14, as I'm having trouble conceiving of a 10-year-old who'd be ready for the emotional gut-punch that The Button War packs. By the novel's end, it's firmly into Joseph Conrad territory, and I don't think that's overstating the point. (Some spoilers follow.)

World War I was (in)famously one of the most opaquely motivated of major conflicts, and Avi does an excellent job of capturing that aspect of it. Though the village changes hands multiple times, and soldiers from at least four different nations make an appearance, the villagers generally regard the entire war in the same way they might think of an earthquake, or a meteor impact. Indeed, their reaction to the German soldiers' claim to have "liberated" the villagers is somewhere between bemusement and bewilderment. Like a natural disaster, the war cannot be understood or stopped. The most that one can hope for is to escape its path without losing too much in the process.

The boys' button dare is similar. The buttons have almost no intrinsic value, and even the choice of them as a prize is arbitrary, driven by a random event at the beginning of the book. Yet, even though the majority of the boys wish to back away from the whole affair, they continue -- even after multiple deaths -- until the bitter, bitter ending.

The major reason is the presence of Jurek, who's a powerful antagonist. Of all the boys, he's the one closest to the fringes of society -- his parents are both dead, and he lives in a tiny shack with his sister, who ekes out a meager living by washing the Russian soldiers' uniforms, and with whom he is constantly fighting. It's obvious from the text that he's struggling with feelings of inferiority. His initial method of compensating is to declare himself to be a descendant of King Bolesław, and thus the true owner of the entire forest. However, he keeps pushing further and further, and by the end of the book, he's a pure sociopath, capable of anything up to and including murder.

If he were only a sociopath, Jurek would be easily dealt with. But, as I mentioned above, he's also wildly charismatic -- even when the other boys have grave doubts about his ideas, or think of him as a lunatic, or actively dangerous, they're seemingly incapable of going against him, or even just ignoring him. True charisma can be a frightening thing, because it's utterly value-neutral. Someone who has it can be Martin Luther King, Jr., or Mick Jagger, or Grigori Rasputin, or Adolf Hitler. Through the character of Jurek, Avi takes a painfully long look at this fact, and what he finds is unsettling.

Avi, of course, already has a Newbery Medal in his pocket (Crispin: The Cross of Lead, 2003). The Button War certainly excels in its setting, and in its powerful anti-war and anti-herd mentality themes. I don't know if the Newbery committee would be willing to give the award to a book this bleak -- if it were to win, I feel like it would race past Sounder and The Giver and even The Slave Dancer as the grimmest book in the Newbery canon. But its merits are sufficient to deserve a close look anyway.


Published in June by Candlewick Press

Newbery Wayback Machine: A Year Down Yonder, by Richard Peck (2001)

It is 1937, and Mary Alice's father has lost his job and his apartment. While he and Mary Alice's mother move into a single room, and older brother Joey heads off to join the Civilian Conservation Corps, Mary Alice herself is shuttled away from Chicago, and down to Grandma Dowdel's home in rural Illinois. A Year Down Yonder does indeed cover nearly a year in Mary Alice's life, as she learns to navigate her new school, comes to understand the rhythms of small-town life, and bonds with her grandmother, an imposing woman whose gruff, threatening exterior conceals a caring heart.

In many ways, Richard Peck's novel, which won the 2001 Newbery Medal, was even at the time something of a throwback. Featuring a protagonist who is 15 at the book's outset, and consisting of a series of vignettes rather than a single, unified story, A Year Down Yonder reminded me of Anne of Avonlea (1909), It's Like This, Cat (1963), and similar episodic books that feature a teenage protagonist, but appeal to younger readers.

I'm unconvinced that Yonder is anything like as effective as the two novels that I mentioned, however -- although I'll also freely admit that what we may actually be looking at is my personal biases and tastes as a reader. It's a short book -- a mere 130 pages in my copy -- and I just don't feel like it has anything like enough room to develop the secondary characters sufficiently. This was especially true given the ending (spoiler alert!), in which an adult Mary Alice returns to her grandmother's house and marries Royce McNabb, who moves to town halfway through the book. But Royce has barely a dozen speaking lines in the novel, and I didn't feel like I knew him well enough for that ending to have any emotional heft.

From what I've read, a lot of the love for A Year Down Yonder (and its predecessor, A Long Way From Chicago, which Honored in 1999) comes from a love for the character of Grandma Dowdel, who is at the book's center. The thing is...I just didn't like her very much. She has a great deal of kindness towards the unfortunate and downtrodden, but she also has a streak of vindictiveness that was hard for me to deal with, and a tendency to kill mosquitoes with sledgehammers, metaphorically speaking. When the town boys are knocking down outhouses for their Halloween pranks, Grandma deals with this by...setting up a trip wire in her back yard, hiding, and then, once the lead boy has tripped on the wire and broken his nose on the concrete walk, throwing glue all over him. The whole story reminded me of nothing so much as this xkcd cartoon:

Similarly, later in the book, Grandma Dowdel's artist boarder has managed to sneak the local postmistress into the attic, and is painting her in the nude. The snake that lives in the attic falls on the postmistress, who runs screaming downstairs, and then begins to run back to her house, sans clothes. What does Grandma do? Why, she says, "That's too good a show to keep to ourselves," and goes outside and fires off her shotgun so that everyone in town will look outside to see what's happening and catch an eyeful of the postmistress. I think that's intended as comedic, but I gotta tell you, it just left me feeling icky.

A lot of people love this book, and so your take on it may be radically different from mine. But I'm not a fan, and would have preferred the Newbery to go to a different title that year -- perhaps one of the four Honor books, which included Because of Winn-Dixie and Joey Pigza Loses Control.

Newbery Wayback Machine: Caddie Woodlawn, by Carol Ryrie Brink (1936)

Caddie Woodlawn, which won Carol Ryrie Brink the 1936 Newbery Medal, is based on the real-life adventures of Brink's grandmother, Caddie Woodhouse. Set in frontier Wisconsin just before and after the end of the Civil War, Caddie Woodlawn details the escapades of Caddie and her siblings as they navigate both the physical landscape of the Upper Midwest and the emotional landscape of growing up. It was immensely popular, and it spawned a sequel (Magical Melons, 1939, in print these days as Caddie Woodlawn's Family), a Brink-written 1945 radio drama, a 1989 TV movie, and even a 2011 stage musical.

It's also something of a controversial book these days. Just to take one example, a well-known piece by American Indians in Children's Literature founder and 2019 Arbuthnot Lecturer Debbie Reese talks in part about her daughter's highly negative reactions to the book's depictions of Native Americans.

And boy, those depictions are problematic. The Woodlawns' neighbors are about as racist as possible (witness their talk about a preemptive massacre against the local tribe). And although Caddie and her family are clearly presented as the most "enlightened" of the settlers -- Caddie undertakes a dangerous ride to warn her friend Indian John, and Mr. Woodlawn puts the kibosh on his neighbors' murderous plans -- that's not a particularly high bar. In perhaps the novel's most uncomfortable passage, Indian John, who is leaving the area for an unspecified period of time, leaves a treasured possession with Caddie: a scalp belt, inherited from his father. Caddie and her siblings decide that this provides them with an excellent opportunity to earn some side income, and charge admission to their school friends to see the scalp belt of "Chief Bloody Tomohawk." I kept waiting for the children to get some kind of comeuppance for this behavior...but they don't. The hired man, Robert Ireton, catches them, but is only upset that they've lit a candle in the barn, and sings an Irish folk song for the children as part of the show when they tell him what is taking place.

There are moments in Caddie Woodlawn that work -- the bit where younger brother Warren completely fails at his school recitation is almost Anne of Green Gables-esque, and older brother Tom's impromptu piece of fiction about Pee-Wee the Farmer is a piece of inspired lunacy. Overall though, I had a hard time with this one, even before the ending, which dovetails a kind of maudlin patriotism that's difficult for me to take, and a final bit that's simply an opportunity for me to repost my favorite Gary Larson cartoon*:

Weirdly, Caddie Woodlawn won the Newbery the same year that Little House on the Prairie failed to win or honor. Both books have many of the same strengths and drawbacks, and it's surprising to me that one book won while the other was shut out. The four Honor books from 1936 are ones I haven't made it to yet; all of them are lesser-known works from authors more famous for other things. (The Good Master is by Kate Seredy, who would win the 1938 Newbery for The White Stag; Young Walter Scott is by Elizabeth Janet Gray, who, after a name change to Elizabeth Gray Vining, would win the 1943 Newbery for Adam of the Road; All Sail Set is by Armstrong Sperry, who would win the 1941 Newbery for Call It Courage; and Honk, the Moose is by Phil Stong, an author mostly known for his adult works including State Fair, which was adapted into a 1945 musical film with songs by Rogers & Hammerstein.) As such, it's hard to say Caddie Woodlawn was a mistake choice, but it's not one of my favorites.

*Yes, I know Caddie Woodlawn predates The Incredible Journey by 25 years, but I'll stand by my response anyway.

Newbery Wayback Machine: Sarah, Plain and Tall, by Patricia MacLachlan (1986)

As Sarah, Plain and Tall opens, Anna and Caleb are living on a farm somewhere in the endless prairies of the American west. Their Mama died the day after Caleb was born; although their Papa cares for them with kindness, he no longer sings, and their family is both smaller and sadder than before. However, Papa has placed a newspaper advertisement seeking a bride, to which the titular Sarah has responded. Her month-long trial visit with Papa and the children occupies the bulk of Patricia MacLachlan's novella, which took home the 1986 Newbery.

Sarah, Plain and Tall is a good candidate for the quietest book in the Newbery canon. The stakes are almost purely emotional, and revolve around the children's hopes for a life that includes Sarah, and their fears that she might return to her beloved Maine coast. Many of the scenes feature Sarah learning various farm tasks, which she approaches with full dedication. Other than Papa, the children, and Sarah, the only characters with any speaking lines within the book's 58 pages are a neighbor couple who come to help with some of the plowing.

And yet, at least in my opinion, Sarah is one of the crowning achievements in American children's literature. Its simply-structured prose has a numinous quality that makes it read like poetry; I've read precious few children's books that are as beautiful as Sarah. No words are wasted. The book's stunning imagery also gives us a window into the minds and hearts of the characters -- it's full of emotion, but emotion that is shown, rather than told, as creative writing instructors like to say. We feel Anna's nostalgia and hope, Caleb's frenetic dithering between joy and fear, and Papa's tender sadness as if they were our own.

At the center of it all is Sarah, who is complex and lovable and real. She contains an honest mix of loneliness, openness, and confidence. Although it's Maggie, one of the neighbors, who comes up with what is perhaps the book's central line ("There are always things to miss, no matter where you are."), it's Sarah who embodies it in both its melancholia and its comforting acceptance. If I were Caleb or Anna, I would want Sarah to stay too.

The resolution of Sarah's plot is perhaps given away by the fact that MacLachlan has written four sequels, starting with 1994's Skylark. But the plot isn't what makes Sarah -- it's the feelings of the characters, the vastness of the place, and the carefully-constructed fugue of imagery that raise the book to the level of masterpiece. Not every deeply emotional event is loud and dramatic, and MacLachlan shows tremendous respect for this fact.

The Newbery committee named two honor books in 1986: Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun, by Rhoda Blumberg, and Dogsong, by Gary Paulsen. Several other books that were eligible have become classics  -- at the very least, we have to mention The Polar Express, by Chris Van Allsburg, The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales, by Virginia Hamilton, and The Castle in the Attic, by Elizabeth Winthrop. But despite the stiff competition, I think the committee made the right choice here. Sarah, Plain and Tall genuinely represents the best of American children's literature.

Shiny Silver Medals: The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg, by Rodman Philbrick (2010 Honor)

The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg is a hard book to describe. For the first two-thirds of the novel, it's very much in the vein of something like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. We follow the titular protagonist as he searches for his brother, Harold, who has been forced into the Union army during the Civil War, marveling at the foibles and schemes of the adults Homer encounters, and laughing at his over-the-top lies. But then it takes a hard left turn into The Red Badge of Courage territory (even nicking that book's climactic plot point), becoming something of a meditation on the horrors of war.

The first part of Mostly True Adventures is fun and clever, but also fits into an established strain of children's literature. However, precious few children's novels are willing to go anywhere near as deep into the battlefields of the American Civil War. (Only Rifles for Watie, Harold Keith's 1958 Newbery winner, springs immediately to mind, and that one is, shall we say, a much less engaging read.) To me, the most effective and moving part of the book takes place near the end, as Homer rides desperately across the Gettysburg battlefield. It breaks into a poetic, all-caps series of brief descriptions of the horrors that Homer sees, ending with the gut punch of "THINGS TOO TERRIBLE TO WRITE, FOR FEAR THE PAGE WILL BURN. / THINGS BEST FORGOT."

Indeed, my 13-year-old daughter enjoyed the book, but opined that the contents of those last few chapters should have made Mostly True Adventures a YA book. I wouldn't go that far -- I think Homer's first-person narration keeps the book from fully tipping into YA territory -- but I certainly understand where she's coming from.

The final page is a brilliant, moving conclusion, and the novel on the whole is a true piece of art. It had no chance to win the 2010 Newbery -- nothing was going to beat When You Reach Me that year -- but the Honor it did take home is well-deserved.

Newbery Wayback Machine: The Trumpeter of Krakow (1929)

Recently, we opened a Little Free Library in the bus station with which we share a building. As I was helping to stock it, I saw a copy of The Trumpeter of Krakow in the stack of books, and I figured I'd give it a read before sending it on its Little Free way.

After Rachael's review, I wasn't expecting much from this one. Indeed, I can agree with most of her points. The characters, without exception, are two-dimensional at best. The descriptions of clothing are detailed to the point of absurdity, and I'd add that the descriptions of streets and buildings are as well. When the staircase up to the alchemist's loft was destroyed by an explosion halfway through the book, I was ecstatic, because it meant I wasn't going to have to read any more about how creaky and rickety it looked. This is a 50-page book that's padded out to 200 with endlessly detailed descriptive passages, like a 15th-century Polish version of The House of the Seven Gables.

That might not even be that bad of a thing, because the plot itself is unexciting at best. I never felt invested in the fate of the Great Tarnov Crystal, and even in the life-or-death moments, I didn't feel like much was at stake. This is the sort of book where the main characters are more or less bulletproof, and given that they don't undergo any change or development as the novel progresses, there's not much to emotionally invest in. The weirdly passive prose also undercuts any sense of suspense.

Really, the thing I enjoyed most about Trumpeter was the historical information. Jan Kanty isn't much of a character within the pages, but was a fascinating historical figure. The same goes for King Kazimir Jagiello. I did enjoy reading about the University of Krakow, and about the fortress-palace at the heart of the lively city of Krakow itself.

The best book eligible for the 1929 Newbery was, as Rachael mentioned, Millions of Cats, which did Honor. That said, as these early winners go, The Trumpeter of Krakow really isn't as bad as I perhaps make it sound. It has a plot, which puts it above the sludgy meanderings of Smoky, the Cowhorse or Waterless Mountain, and it isn't treacly glurge like The Cat Who Went to Heaven. It's more like The Dark Frigate -- a book whose praises I'd decline to sing, but which points the way to better things for American children's lit. It's a straight line from Trumpeter to, say, Crispin: The Cross of Lead, and any number of other books featuring mystery and adventure in the far-off past.

Newbery Wayback Machine: A Gathering of Days, by Joan W. Blos (1980)

Nowadays, when I think of novels in diary form for children, what comes to mind are snarkily humorous books such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Dear Dumb Diary. Indeed, although there are plenty of YA examples (I Capture the Castle, So Much to Tell You, Z for Zachariah, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, The Bunker Diary, etc.), I had a difficult time thinking of "literary" diary-novels for younger readers beyond A Gathering of Days, Catherine, Called Birdy, and Love That Dog.

And, if I'm being honest, A Gathering of Days, Joan W. Blos's 1980 Newbery winner, isn't far from being a YA book itself. The protagonist, Catherine Hall, is thirteen when the novel starts, and almost fifteen when it ends. The tone of the book is deliberately old-fashioned, however, and reminded me much more of Lucy Maud Montgomery and Laura Ingalls Wilder than of anything we'd think of as "modern" YA.

I think I might have enjoyed A Gathering of Days more if it were not in diary form, actually. Although Blos is able to use the format to drop in some intriguing slice-of-life details, such as the maple sugaring process, I felt like most of the characters were thin and underdeveloped. The diary entries aren't long -- I don't think a single one ran to three pages in my copy -- which means that the book is constantly flitting from scene to scene, and dialogue is at a minimum. The spotlight simply can't rest on any given character for long. As such, certain plot points, such as the death of Cassie, Catherine's best friend, didn't bring me the emotional power they were intended to.

It's not a spoiler, by the way, to say that Cassie eventually dies, because this information is initially conveyed on the very first page of the book. Blos elected to give the diary a brief "frame story" in the form of letters, written by a much older Catherine to her granddaughter, that open and close the book. The initial letter gives away some of the most important plot points -- not only Cassie's death, but Catherine's father's remarriage, and Catherine's eventual departure from her farm. It seemed like a baffling choice to me, since it has the effect of removing most of the dramatic tension from the novel.

It's possible that Blos simply wasn't concerned with dramatic tension. I noticed as I read that most of the events in the book didn't build to much. Catherine's friend Sophy moves away to work at a mill, but there's no real payoff; it's just a thing that happens. Even the biggest non-spoiled plot thread, involving a runaway slave in need of help, felt oddly subdued to me.

Perhaps the Newbery committee was more enthralled than I was by the unorthodox format and historical detail of A Gathering of Days. Either way, the Newbery was probably deserved; in hindsight, the 1979 publishing year was a relatively weak one for children's literature. Only one honor book was named (The Road from Home, by David Kherdian), and I'm not aware of any hidden classics that would have been eligible. I think A Gathering of Days is a minor entry on the Newbery rolls, but given the competition, it was an entirely reasonable choice for the 1980 Medal.

Newbery Wayback Machine: The Dark Frigate, by Charles Boardman Hawes (1924)

It's true that in March, we'll all be reviewing Newbery Winners from the 1930s. However, much like flappers, stockbrokers, and Calvin Coolidge, I'm not quite ready to leave the 1920s behind, and so I'm putting up a review of the 1924 winner, Charles Boardman Hawes' The Dark Frigate.

The Dark Frigate is a nautical yarn, the kind of book in which a fine young man -- Philip Marsham, our spirited protagonist -- accidentally falls in with a gang of scoundrels, and must take part in many thrilling adventures with them. This is the Robert Louis Stevenson formula, more than a little familiar from Treasure Island (1883) and Kidnapped (1886). Indeed, the pirates in The Dark Frigate are led by a charismatic antihero (Tom "The Old One" Jordan) who neatly fills the Long John Silver role, and the whole novel at times feels very much like a Stevenson pastiche.

It's also not as good as Stevenson; Philip Marsham is a colorless protagonist who's no Jim Hawkins or David Balfour, and few of the supporting characters can muster more than one personality trait. The nautical language is piled on so thick and heavy that for long stretches, the action is almost impossible to understand without a dictionary. And for a collection of notorious rogues, Tom Jordan's crew isn't actually all that good at their job; after they manage to take over Marsham's ship, the Rose of Devon, they don't accomplish much of anything for the rest of the novel.

Still, for all that it's a pale imitation of better books, The Dark Frigate isn't a terrible novel, especially by the (admittedly low) standards of 1920s American children's literature. The plot depends on some Dickensian coincidences, but is solidly constructed, and Hawes' obvious love for the nautical world invests the book with a measure of genuine charm. And -- although this is faint praise indeed -- I only counted one or two instances of obvious racism.

The Newbery eligibility criteria provide for a number of relatively unlikely circumstances, such as the author being a US citizen living abroad (e.g., at least at the time of her Newbery win, Sharon Creech); a foreign national living in the US (Neil Gaiman and Will James both fell into this category, although James' non-citizenship wasn't common knowledge at the time); and two or more authors co-writing a book (which, though it hasn't ever applied to the Newbery winner, has covered five Honor books over the years). Sadly, Charles Boardman Hawes remains the only beneficiary of the proviso that allows the award to be given posthumously; shortly after delivering the manuscript of The Dark Frigate to his publisher, he contracted pneumonic meningitis, and died before the novel was actually printed.

Even if sentimentality thus influenced the selection of The Dark Frigate as the Newbery winner, it was probably a solid choice; no Honor books were named for the 1924 award, and the only other "classic" title from the 1923 publishing year that I'm aware of is Bambi, a Life in the Woods, by the Austrian author Felix Salten.

And now, on to the 1930s!

Newbery Wayback Machine: The Trumpeter of Krakow, by Eric P. Kelly (1929)

This is the edition that I read.
There are more appealing covers,
but I thought you should suffer as I did.

We're going to skip to the end of the Newbery's first decade now and take a look at the winner of the 1929 medal: Eric P. Kelly's rousing adventure of late Medieval/early Renaissance Poland, The Trumpeter of Krakow. 

When I was searching Goodreads for the books that I plan to read for this Newbery Wayback plan, I kept coming across my friends' reviews of these books. Of Trumpeter, Colby Sharp said: "I have no idea why I'm giving this book 2 stars instead of 1. I think mostly because I'm giving myself a bonus star because I finished it in one sitting." Well, Mr. Sharp, color me impressed. I had trouble getting through a single chapter without nodding off, so you must have had some strong coffee at your disposal. 

But look: I told myself I wasn't going to be uncharitable in this review and I'm already unleashing the snark. 

The Trumpeter of Krakow combines two genres that seemed to be frequently lauded during the first decade of the Newbery: historical fiction and stories about Faraway Lands. It tells the story of a father, mother, and son who makes their way to Krakow after their estate is destroyed by Tartars. In their possession is the MacGuffin Great Tarnov Crystal, which the family has sworn to hide and eventually deliver to the king of Poland. The Good Jan Kanty finds them lodgings in the same building as an alchemist and his beautiful daughter. An evil Tartar tries to get the Crystal. He doesn't succeed. There is a big fire and the kids get married at the end. 

In the spirit of charity, let's talk about what Kelly gets right: setting. Even a modern reader has to admit, I think, that Kelly's evocation of fifteenth century Poland is vivid and well-researched*. The city of Krakow is probably the most well-developed character in the novel. While the other characters' personalities may be flat, at least we know exactly what they're wearing. (This is true almost ad absurdum - I felt like I was watching Project Runway: Medieval Krakow when I read descriptions like this, of a watchman who only appears in the book for two pages: "He was a man perhaps past middle age, clad in a garment of leather over which was a very light chain armor poorly woven; this fell like a skirt with pointed edges just below the knees. Above the waist the links of armor were a bit heavier, extending over the shoulders and back into long sleeves clear to the wrist, and up past the neck to a kind of head-covering like a cowl, over which he wore a pointed helmet of rough metal. Outside the armor he wore a very short leather vest caught with a belt  from which hung a short sword, and across the shoulders just below the neck another belt with a buckle at the left, where the halberd could be secured and balanced." Make it work, Kelly!)

And that description is fairly representative of Kelly's treatment of his characters. They are types: the swarthy, scar-faced Tartar; the skulking half-wit; the pure and beautiful young girl. After taking the era to task over its rampant superstition, Kelly indulges in the most blatant physiognomy in his description of the evil young student who leads the alchemist astray: "But the nose was thin and mean, the mouth was small and smug, and out of the eyes came a look that signified an utterly selfish spirit behind them." 

If the characters were lacking, I was hoping to at least get caught up in the plot, which The Horn Book described as "a tale of exciting adventure." While it's true that a great deal of things happen, Kelly's prose has an oddly detached quality that robs the action of all immediacy. The dialogue in particular is laughably flat. When the band of Tartars invades the family's lodgings and captures the boy, the alchemist responds to the life-threatening situation taking place outside his door like so: "Whew, thought the alchemist, they silenced the boy. A gag, probably." Darn it, and they're probably going to kill him too. 

Trumpeter was well-received in its day. It emerged from MacMillan under the guidance of Louise Seaman Bechtel, the rock star children's editor of the Newbery's first few decades. Anne Carroll Moore called it "a thrilling, well-written adventure mystery story" in her round-up of "representative" books of 1928. 

Should it have won the medal? Given that six honor books were named that year, we can conclude that 1928 was considered a very good year for children's publishing. Only one of those books is still widely read - much more widely than Trumpeter, I'd wager - and that is Wanda Gag's Millions of Cats. In Minders of Make-Believe, Leonard Marcus observes, "When librarians awarded Millions of Cats a Newbery Honor, they chose to recognize the book's distinction while apparently not feeling quite right about giving the literature prize to a picture book." 

I agree. There's no question that Millions of Cats is the better book, and I bet this past year's Newbery committee would have given it the big gold sticker. 

*Well... mostly. It turns out that the legend at the center of the novel may be the result of a misunderstanding on Kelly's part. They really do play the Heynal from the tower of St. Mary's, and it really does break off in the middle, but the story behind the broken note may have been invented by Kelly on the basis of a misinterpretation: "Kelly, who was teaching at the Jagiellonian University on a scholar exchange in 1925-26, admitted that he did not speak the Polish language very well when he wrote the story, and had relied on French-speaking friends to translate."

In any case, you can hear the famous trumpet call here. 

2016 Contenders: Dear Hank Williams, by Kimberly Willis Holt

The year is 1948 in the small town of Rippling Creek, Louisiana (which has several creeks, none of which are particularly rippling, come to think of it). Tate P. Ellerbee’s new teacher has assigned her students to strike up a correspondence with a pen pal. Tate knows exactly who she’ll write: her favorite singer, Hank Williams, whose music career is just kicking off with a regular gig on the Louisiana Hayride radio show. Tate tells Mr. Hank Williams about how she lives with her Aunt Patty Cake and her Uncle Jolly, how she wants a dog more than anything, and how she’s secretly practicing to sing in the Rippling Creek May Festival Talent Show and (hopefully beat that spoiled brat Verbia Calhoon).

I found several things about the novel quite interesting:

1. It’s historical fiction that really skirts around the edges of the era it’s portraying, rather than tackling it head on. WWII, which has just ended, is only mentioned tangentially, and Rippling Creek’s marginalized African American community is only touched upon. These two things alone could be the subjects of their own books, but Dear Hank Williams is about Tate, who is eleven years old, and her family, who aren’t really affected by those issues, so they become backdrop to the primary drama which is centered around school, and talent shows, and listening to the radio.

2. It takes place during a golden age of music that is dear to my heart: Radio Days. A time when, if you wanted to hear your favorite artist, you had to tune into the radio, maybe at a certain time, on a certain station. A time when procuring and owning a recorded piece of music was extremely special. A time when we had to physically interact with our music (turn the dial on the radio, put the needle on the record). A time when listening to music was a social event you experienced with your friends and family. A time when you could hear someone singing and never know, or care, what they looked like. Vinyl, and independent artists, are enjoying a bit of a resurgence lately, but for the most part all of this is just gone. You can own music as fast you can click “download.” You can easily push a button and listen to it on your headphones. You can know, and judge, what the artist looks like instantaneously. In fact, many people are given record contracts for seemingly no reason besides that their image is marketable! I wonder if the children who’ll read Dear Hank Williams will appreciate this. And I wonder too if they’ll be able to put Hank Williams, an old time country singer, with a proclivity for yodeling, into the context of his time period. Tate is basically writing a pop star. She is basically writing to Justin Bieber (but 2010 Justin Bieber who was kind of adorable, not 2015 Justin Bieber who is kind of ridiculous).

3. Tate is an unreliable narrator, but the untruths she tells are told with such sincerity you forgive and forget her unreliability. It’s quite an achievement on author Kimberly Willis Holt’s part to create a character so likable that you aren’t mad at her for lying, and despite her giving you a totally justifiable reason to mistrust her, you just don’t want to.

4. The book is written in the epistolary style, and is chock full of the folksy charm that seems to automatically accompany any novel set in a small town America, which readers have been known to either love or hate, with little gray area in between. I liked it, but, to quote my favorite bloggers, Sam and Rachael, “your mileage may vary.”

5. The book tackles some tough issues. Substance abuse, abandonment, and death are all explored as Tate journals her feelings in letters to Hank Williams. Her revelations are unexpected, but not unsurprising, and the serious themes are treated with the dignity they deserve.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this book gets attention from the Newbery committee. It can be hard for a group of opinionated librarians (and honorary librarians) to agree on what’s best. I feel Dear Hank Williams could be a unifying book with its many aspects worth celebrating.

For now, let’s channel Tate Ellerbee, and listen to some of that fine music by the late, legendary Hank Williams Sr.

2016 Contenders: Gone Crazy in Alabama, by Rita Williams-Garcia

This was one of my most anticipated books of the year, partly because I was lucky enough to talk with the author about it a whole year before it came out. I was looking forward to the conclusion of the Gaither sisters' story arc, as well as the southern setting and family history.

When we rejoin Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern, they are on their way to the Greyhound terminal to begin their journey to visit Big Ma and her mother, Ma Charle,s in rural Alabama. There are several potential sources of conflict, both overt and less obvious. Pa's new wife ("Mrs.") is pregnant. The friction between Delphine and Vonetta is still present, as is Vonetta's resentment towards Uncle Darnell, who's out of rehab and living with Big Ma. (It's a difficult time all around for Vonetta). And then there's the bad blood - buckets of it - between Ma Charles and her half-sister, Miss Trotter. The two sisters live on opposite sides of the same creek, but haven't spoken in decades. Oh, and the family ties to the Klan.

If you think that all makes Gone Crazy in Alabama sound like an awfully ambitious novel, then you are correct. Williams-Garcia has a lot of plot threads to weave together, a new setting and several new characters to introduce, and a trilogy to bring to a satisfying close. For the most part, she accomplishes all of it with finesse. The relationship among the three sisters, especially Delphine and Vonetta, is going through some growing pains, and the resolution of that arc is poignant, as is Vonetta's reconciliation with Uncle Darnell. The Alabama setting - lazy and idyllic on the surface, complicated underneath - is well-realized. There are several intriguing new characters, especially Ma Charles and Miss Trotter, whose mutual sniping provides much of the book's humor.

On the whole though, this is not nearly as funny a book as either of the previous two. There is a brush with tragedy that takes up several chapters, but even before that, most of the characters are going through difficult times for various reasons. That's all handled deftly enough that it doesn't weigh down the narrative, but some of the family history does slow the pace. Telling it through Ma Charles and Miss Trotter's dueling narratives is clever, but it's still a lot of history to get through, and as a reader I often felt lost. Your mileage may vary.

Taken as a whole, Gone Crazy showcases the lovely prose, sharp dialogue, and larger-than-life situations that Rita Williams-Garcia writes so well. The many fans of the Gaither sisters will find it a satisfying conclusion to the series.

Published in April by Amistad/HarperCollins 

2016 Contenders: Echo, by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Echo is proof that Pam Muñoz Ryan loves us and wants us to be happy.

It is a story about the divine and mysterious power of the harmonica.

Otto is lost in the woods. All he has with him is a book and a mouth harp he bought from gypsies that morning. In the dark, he is comforted by three women, Eins, Zwei, and Drei, princesses, lost themselves, kept in the forest by a witch. They cannot leave, but their spirits can be freed by a woodwind. Otto offers up his small instrument…

“But it’s only a harmonica”

“Oh it is much more!” said Eins. “When you play it, you breathe in and out, just as you would to keep your body alive. Have you ever considered that one person might play the mouth harp and pass along her strength and vision and knowledge?”

“So that the next musician who plays it might feel the same?” said Zwei. “It is true. When play you will see and find your way. You will have the fortitude to carry on.”

Drei nodded. “And you will be forever joined to us, to all who have played the harp, and to all who will play it, by the silken thread of destiny.”

The three lost princesses play Otto’s harmonica, and then he plays it, wandering through the pines, until somebody hears him and leads him back home. When he relays his tale, his parents wonder if he’s “affected.” They tell him he must have imagined Eins, Zwei, and Drei. He must have even imagined the gypsies who sold him a harmonica, as there have been none in the village lately…

Suddenly the novel completely shifts. New setting, new characters, new plot. You’re taken aback. Is the author really doing this? Totally dropping a story and expecting us to become invested in a new one? But that’s exactly what happens…

Friedrich is a young man living in Germany in 1933. He and his father and uncle work at the Hohner harmonica factory. They are a happy family of musicians. Friedrich is very talented, with hopes he can attend a conservatory, and one day conduct a symphony. But times are frightening. The Nazi party is beginning to take power. Everyone is concerned with being a loyal citizen. Everywhere they’re discussing the purity of the German race. Even Friedrich’s sister is active in the Hitler youth, and encourages her father to discontinue his friendship with their Jewish neighbor. He doesn’t heed her advice and one day Friedrich comes home to find all of his family’s possessions upturned by the Gestapo, and his father on his way to a work camp to be re-educated. The only thing bringing him any joy is a harmonica he found in a disused part of the factory, emblazoned with an “M,” that sounds more harmonious than any instrument he’s ever played…

The novel shifts again. New setting, new characters, new plot. But what about Friedrich? Can he and his uncle hatch a plan to have his father released from the work camp? Will his sister come to her senses and help them? Will he make it into a conservatory and become a conductor? (Come to think about it, we never found out what became of Otto!) Forget about all that for now.

Mike and his little brother Frankie are in a Pennsylvania orphanage in 1935. Mike is worried. He’s heard a rumor that the younger children at the orphanage will all soon be transferred to a state run orphanage. Not only will Mike and Frankie be separated, and they’ve never been separated, but the conditions at the state home are awful, kids worked to the bone, dying of diseases. Miraculously, two men arrive at the orphanage. They represent an heiress who wishes to adopt a child. A child who is musically inclined. And it just so happens the only two boys who can play the old piano at the orphanage are Mike and Frankie. Oh, and she wants to adopt them that very day. The brothers are whisked away to the stately home of Eunice Dow Sturbridge. But something’s not quite right. “Aunt Eunie” does not receive her wards warmly at all. In fact she seems angered by their presence despite their many attempts to win her over. Mike discovers she didn’t really want to adopt, rather it was a stipulation of her father’s will, and that she had requested a young girl, not two boys, particularly an older boy. Mike wonders if he leaves, could she learn to love Frankie at least? He learns of a traveling harmonica orchestra that are auditioning for new players. If he can join Hoxie’s Harmonica Wizards, he’d have a place to go, and Frankie could hopefully get some attention from their new mother. And he’s procured just the right instrument, a remarkable harmonica, emblazoned with an “M,” to practice on.

The novel shifts again. New setting, new characters, new plot. But what about Mike and Frankie? Will Aunt Eunie ever open her heart to them? Will Mike earn a spot in the orchestra? Wait, is that Friedrich’s harmonica? Hey, whatever happened to Friedrich? (And whatever happened to Otto?) Forget about all that for now.

Ivy Lopez is the daughter of migrant farm workers in California in 1942. Of all her classmates, she has been chosen to perform a harmonica solo on the radio and she’s so excited. It’s not to be however, because her family must abruptly move. Her father has taken a job overseeing the farm of the Yamamoto family, who’ve been unfortunately detained in a Japanese Internment camp. The Lopez family will work their land, and watch over their home, until they’re allowed to return, and if they like how they’ve kept the place, they will keep her father on as a hired hand. Their families are now linked in a way. Ivy is extremely disappointed that because her family is Latino, she must attend a separate school, an annex of the school her more privileged peers attend. Ivy plays her harmonica, a beautiful thing, emblazoned with an “M,” the music it makes transcending the injustice in the world, and hopes to rise above all the racial prejudice she’s confronted with.

The novel shifts again. But we weren’t finished with Ivy! What happens to her? How did she get Mike’s harmonica? And where did he end up? And, seriously now, did Friedrich even survive Nazi Germany? (And Otto. Dammit. Why did you even tell us about Otto?)

In the final 40 pages, Pam Muñoz Ryan beautifully ties EVERYTHING up, in a gorgeous bow, her gift to her readers, who have hung on this long, who have emotionally invested in not one, but four separate stories. We who have kept turning pages, perhaps first out of duty, but then with delight, get to figuratively open this present and see what’s become of Friedrich, Mike, Ivy, even Otto, and their families, and witness how artfully their lives were intertwined by the magic of one harmonica.

This book, in my humble opinion, is nothing short of a masterpiece. It’s a hell of a way to kick off 2015 Newbery buzz. But it’s so much more. This is a book for people of all ages to be entranced by. It is enchanting. It is wonderful. It’s honestly one of the greatest things I’ve read in a really long time (and I read a lot, people). I hope that you’ll give it a try, not just because it could win a medal, but because it is a thing to behold, a force to be reckoned with, an emotional rollercoaster that leaves you wanting nothing at the end, except maybe to hold the book to your chest, and give it a big hug. 

 Published in February by Scholastic

Today's guest reviewer is Tess Goldwasser, Youth Services Librarian, St. Mary's County Library, Maryland. Tess also writes about picture books at Kid's Book Blog.