The Ones That Got Away: The Last Martin, by Jonathan Friesen

Sometime back in 2011 or 2012, I was at a library conference, wandering the exhibits, and happened by the Zonderkidz booth. Jonathan Friesen was there, signing copies of his new book, The Last Martin. He was kind enough to sign one for my daughter, and I passed the book on to her after the conference.

This is the kind of story that's happened dozens of times during the course of my library career. But this time was different, because my daughter devoured this book, returning the verdict that The Last Martin was her FAVORITE BOOK EVER. To this day, that's an opinion that she stands by. Regardless of what other books she may read in the future, I think it's safe to say that, at the very least, The Last Martin stands as one of the defining novels of her childhood.

In the wider world, Friesen is an author who's picked up a big ALA award (the 2009 Schneider Award, teen division, for Jerk, California), and The Last Martin garnered starred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal. The book didn't show up in the Newbery rolls in 2012, however, nor did it make the Notables list. As of this writing, it's still in print, but doesn't seem to have attracted a significant following outside of my daughter -- the most recent reviews on Amazon and Goodreads are both from 2016.

But, that's the thing about books. Sometimes, a book simply happens to be the perfect book for a reader at a specific point in time, regardless of said book's popularity. When I think back on the books that I remember with exceptional fondness from my own childhood, that list includes well-known titles such as Corduroy, The Hobbit, and Interstellar Pig. It also includes an obscure, mostly forgotten Barbara Dillon/Chris Conover picture book, The Beast in the Bed. Ranganathan's Third Law of Library Science, after all, is "Every book its reader," and that's as true now as it was in 1931, when Ranganathan wrote it.

As for The Last Martin, it's the story of middle schooler Martin Boyle, an unassuming budding writer, who lives with his little sister, Lani, his frenzied, germophobic mother, and his father, a professional military reenactor. On an annual visit to the family cemetery, Martin makes the startling discovery that, beginning with the 1790 birth of his military hero namesake, there has always been a Martin Boyle -- and that every time a new Martin is born, the previous Martin dies. Since Martin's aunt is six months pregnant, and plans to name her new baby boy Martin, does this mean that the current Martin is cursed to die in three months? It's up to Martin and his ragtag group of friends -- his best buddy, Charley; his crush, Julia; and Poole, a Huck Finn-esque orphan who's been living in an abandoned boxcar in Martin's backyard -- to solve the mystery and end the curse before Martin's time runs out.

On a purely literary level, I can see why The Last Martin didn't win any ALA awards. The characterization is often cartoonish, some of the pacing seems occasionally off, and the prose is competent without being particularly noteworthy. But I can also see why my daughter loves it -- there's mystery, humor, romance, and a group of friends banding together to overcome a seemingly insurmountable problem.

And maybe the lesson I should take from the book is that a novel doesn't have to be "perfect" to be enjoyable. I spend a lot of time evaluating and analyzing books, enough so that I sometimes forget that a story can sweep you away and draw you in even if it doesn't check every box that a literary award-winner would. The Last Martin has plenty of flaws, but it also tells a fascinating story -- a story that has found at least one lifelong fan.

The Ones That Got Away: Ramona the Pest, by Beverly Cleary

Almost every good children's book has well-developed child characters, but there are certain authors whose works seem to exhibit a truly exceptional grasp on how children act, think, and feel. I think of authors such as Kevin Henkes, Louise FitzHugh, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Jack Gantos. And I certainly think of Beverly Cleary, whose characters are so clearly-written that I half expect to look up from one of her books to see Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins, or Leigh Botts standing in front of me.

It's this quality, I think, that makes Ramona the Pest such a standout book. The novel is loosely arranged around Ramona's adventures during her first few months of kindergarten, but what makes the individual set pieces work is the richness and warmth of the characters. Perhaps even more importantly, the relationships between Ramona and the other characters feel natural and real. Ramona's sometimes-exasperated friendship with her neighbor and classmate, Howie Kemp; the mix of love and fear with which she regards her teacher, Miss Binney; the way in which Ramona interacts with her parents -- all of these are note-perfect.

Cleary wrote the Ramona series slowly, with some 44 years separating the first (Beezus and Ramona, 1955) from the last (Ramona's World, 1999). Several of the titles won major awards -- the fourth and sixth (Ramona and Her Father, 1977, and Ramona Quimby, Age 8, 1981) were Newbery Honor books, and the fifth, 1979's Ramona and Her Mother, won the National Book Award. Ramona the Pest, the second in the series, came out in 1968, but was shut out of the 1969 Newbery list.

Even if we were to re-award that year's medal today, Ramona the Pest wouldn't be likely to win; the 1969 Newbery went to Lloyd Alexander's The High King, which remains an undisputed classic. It's interesting to note, however, that the committee only named two Honor books: To Be a Slave, by Julius Lester, and When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw and Other Stories, by Isaac Bashevis Singer. If it were up to me, I'd be tempted to add Ramona the Pest to that number.

As it stands, although none of the Ramona books took the top honor, they're firmly in the pantheon of American children's literature regardless, and Cleary did eventually win the 1984 Newbery Medal, for Dear Mr. Henshaw. I suppose even every great book can't make the Newbery rolls, but I do remain in awe of Cleary's ability to honestly and gently depict the thoughts and feelings of children.

The Ones That Got Away: Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh (1965)

Not very many children's books get their own 50th Anniversary Special Edition of The Horn Book. That's especially true of books that didn't win any of the major ALA awards. However, though Harriet the Spy, the debut novel by Louise Fitzhugh, was shut out of the 1965 awards, it's cast a long, long shadow over the succeeding half-century of children's literature.

Harriet was a highly controversial novel at the time, and in some ways, it's remained so. Its realistic, almost brutal look at playground politics is jarring, and its often-unlikable protagonist is something of a love-her-or-hate-her proposition. The narrative arc too is unusual, given that it has much more in common with the infamous Seinfeld rule ("no hugging, no learning") than anything typical of children's literature. The setting is familiar, but treated much differently than in earlier books; Harriet felt to me like nothing so much as a dystopian version of Roller Skates.

I never came to Harriet as a child, so I inevitably view it through the lens of an adult reader. Frankly, I'm ambivalent about it. It does what it does well better than most other books dream of doing -- Fitzhugh's understanding of child psychology rivals that of Kevin Henkes, and I'd be hard-pressed to name ten children's books that equal Harriet in the excellence of their characterization. Every character in the novel feels like a living, breathing human being, from Harriet herself on down to the teachers and community members on the margins of the story. This, I think, is what people who love Harriet love most about it.

Structurally, however, Harriet is fairly loose. It's divided into three books, but the third book is much shorter than the other two, and I didn't feel like the novel ended so much as simply petered out. I don't think this is because Harriet learns very little from the story's events, since I know it's possible to make that work very well. As K.T. Horning notes in this month's Horn Book, when Fitzhugh brought Harriet to her publisher's office, it was just a series of Harriet's journal entries, and I'm not convinced Fitzhugh ever fully managed to fit her brilliant characters into a realized plot.

I'm also a bit uncomfortable about Harriet for some of the same reasons that I'm not the world's biggest fan of The Westing Game. Someone on Twitter once summarized the HBO series Girls as "white girls, money, whining," and the same argument could be made against Harriet. It's true that each person's problems are their own, and that Harriet's life falls apart almost immediately after the only truly "safe" adult in her life leaves (her parents certainly aren't much help). Yet, given her tremendous wealth and privilege, Harriet's self-centeredness and smugness render her very unattractive to me. Sport, whose problems are easier for me to relate to, is the character I would rather have spent more time with (and indeed, Fitzhugh would later give him his own book).

That, however, is me looking at the book through the eyes of a 21st-century adult, not a 20th-century child. Generations of children have adored Harriet, and it's hard to imagine much of children's literature, from Jack Gantos to Robert Cormier to Barbara Park, without Harriet M. Welsch leading the way.

What of the Newbery? The winner in 1965 was Shadow of a Bull, by Maia Wojciechowska, which, though I think it's a more successful book (and one which I'll be posting about shortly), is much more old-fashioned and much less ambitious. It's not a winner that very many people go back to. The only Honor book was Across Five Aprils, by Irene Hunt, which is also not a particularly well-remembered title.

You could certainly argue that Harriet the Spy should have won in retrospect. I'd opine, however, that a better choice would be a different novel that was snubbed that year, The Book of Three, by Lloyd Alexander, another genuine classic of American children's literature, and one which I think is more carefully put together.

Alexander, of course, would receive plenty of accolades for his books in the future -- a Newbery Medal (The High King, 1969), a Newbery Honor (The Black Cauldron, 1966), the National Book Award (The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian, 1971), and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award (The Fortune-Tellers, 1992), just to name a few. Fitzhugh, alas, would not. She published only three books in her lifetime (and illustrated two others) before dying of a brain aneurysm at the tragically young age of 46. Four other books were printed posthumously, but by and large, Fitzhugh lives on through Harriet the Spy.

But, as this month's Horn Book goes to show, as long as there is children's literature, there will be Harriet.

The Ones That Got Away: The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman (1996)

From its inception, part of the Newbery's purpose has been to encourage the American publishing industry to put out quality books for children. It's an award whose focus is national, not global, and so is specifically limited to books by authors who are citizens or residents of the US. Certainly, in 1922, when the state of American children's publishing could be charitably described as "developing," that made plenty of sense. But one of the questions that has come up repeatedly in the years since then is whether or not that particular criterion has outlived its usefulness.

As a point of comparison, there is a British equivalent to the Newbery, the Carnegie Medal in Literature, awarded by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, the UK version of ALA. When it was established in 1936, it had an analogous rule that limited winners to UK authors; however, that rule was rescinded in 1969, and authors from several foreign countries have, in fact, taken the prize. (For you trivia buffs out there, the only book to win both the Carnegie and the Newbery is The Graveyard Book, by everyone's favorite English expat, Neil Gaiman. The only other author to win both awards is Sharon Creech, who took the Newbery for Walk Two Moons and the Carnegie for Ruby Holler.)

Which model is preferable, the British or the American? I'll confess that I don't really know. What I do know, however, is that there are several occasions in the history of the Newbery where that rule has likely played a significant role in the outcome. Maybe the easiest one to take as an example is 1996, when the Carnegie was awarded to the Newbery-ineligible Philip Pullman novel Northern Lights, or, as it's known in America, The Golden Compass.

Although it was published less than two decades ago, Pullman's novel and its sequels are firmly ensconced in the pantheon of Children's Fantasy Classics, in the same rarified air as The Dark is Rising, The Chronicles of Prydain, the Earthsea books, The Chronicles of Narnia (to which Pullman's books are an explicit reply), The Hobbit, and the Harry Potter novels. It's the darkest of those books, from the paranoia of its religious figures (which earned it any number of challenges) to its horrific quasi-medical experiments that remind one of nothing so much as the WWII-era atrocities of Josef Mengele and Shirō Ishii. But its world-building is astounding, and its characterizations highly detailed; it's a challenging read, but one that provides rich rewards in return for its demands.

Would it have won in '96, had it been eligible? It might well have. The winner that year, Karen Cushman's The Midwife's Apprentice, isn't nearly as well-regarded today as The Golden Compass, and there weren't any snubs that indicate that year's committee wasn't friendly to fantasy. (The other best-remembered title of the year was probably The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963, by Christopher Paul Curtis, which honored.) I'm unconvinced that any other children's book of that year took as many risks, much less navigated its way through them successfully. And as a result, I really believe that, if we were playing by the same rules as the Carnegie, Pullman would have a Newbery Medal to add to his shelf o' awards.