2014 Second Takes: The Year of Billy Miller, by Kevin Henkes

The Year of Billy Miller is a Kevin Henkes novel.

I feel like I can almost stop writing there. Henkes has notable strengths -- the uncanny feel for his child characters' thoughts and emotions, the simple and understated prose -- and they're in full effect here. If you like Kevin Henkes, any Kevin Henkes, you'll almost certainly enjoy Billy Miller.

However, I'm not sure how I feel about Billy Miller in the Newbery discussion. It's distinguished in characters, certainly, and it also has a lovely style. If you want to think about accurately portraying the thoughts and feelings of real people as "presentation of information," I'd give you that one too. It's a strong book, no question about it.

On the other hand, the setting doesn't come into particularly sharp focus; when at one point, Billy and his friend Ned mention the possibility of getting lost and walking all the way to Lake Michigan, I have to confess that I'd essentially forgotten that the book was set in Wisconsin. The argument could be made that it's the portions of the setting that are most relevant to a child that are most carefully delineated, such as Billy's home and school, but compared to many of this year's other strong contenders, I just don't think it's particularly noteworthy.

Maybe more importantly, the plot is loose at best. Billy Miller is episodic by design, and that's not in and of itself a problem, but I feel like the connections between the parts just aren't all that strong. Even within the sections, there's sometimes a weakness in construction. In the last part, for instance, Billy makes a special effort to surreptitiously take a pearl, which he had previously given to his sister Sal, from the box underneath her bed where she keeps it. He hopes that it will bring him luck at his poetry reading, and notes that he'll return it after the show. This sounds like the setup to a conflict -- but, aside from one line about Billy rubbing the pearl for good luck on his way up to the microphone, it's never mentioned again. This isn't the only thread that's discarded without having much of a payoff, and I don't think it helps Henkes' cause.


These are, to some extent, quibbles -- The Year of Billy Miller is, overall, very good, as one would expect from Henkes. But at this time of year, we're trying to zero in on the best of the best, and so quibbles become magnified in importance. As much as we all admire The Henk around here, I think Billy Miller doesn't quite reach the top tier of this year's Newbery candidates.

2014 Contenders: The Year of Billy Miller, by Kevin Henkes

When I attend ALA, I usually approach author signings in one of two frames of mind. Sometimes - probably the majority of times - I am diffident and humble, giving them a quick "thank you" and getting out of their hair. This year, however, I went with the other approach, which I'll call "wild-eyed fangirl." I hugged Laura Amy Schlitz and took a picture in her hat. I burbled and enthused at Anne Ursu. And when I finally got to the front of the Kevin Henkes line, I burst out with, "THANK YOU FOR WRITING SO RESPECTFULLY ABOUT THE EMOTIONAL LIVES OF CHILDREN." 

Mr. Henkes looked a bit bewildered and murmured something noncommittal, but I went away satisfied, because really, he needed to be thanked. I can't think of anyone else writing today who approaches the inner lives of five, six, and seven-year-olds as if he's writing Mrs. Dalloway. As I noted a couple of weeks ago, the emotional authenticity of Penny and Her Marble puts it near the top of my Newbery list for this year. In 2011's Junonia, he portrayed a certain shade of disappointment so honestly that it backfired and made a lot of people dislike the character. (Not me, though - I was that quiet, slightly spoiled ten-year-old living a charmed but melancholy life. Thanks again, Kev!) No matter the age group, Henkes groks kids.

So I was pleased to see that, with his newest novel, Henkes is stepping into the early chapter book arena for the first time. The Year of Billy Miller is just that - a year in the life of a second-grade boy. Many of Henkes' novels defy conventional plot summaries, and I think the back flap copy on this one really misses the mark. "Laugh-out-loud funny!" it shouts. "Dioramas! A second grade poetry slam!" Calm down there, marketing folks. While this book does contain dioramas and a poetry program ("slam" is pushing it), it comes nowhere near that level of implied wackiness, and at no point did I find myself laughing out loud. This is not Clementine, and to market it that way is selling it short.

The Year of Billy Miller is, like most Henkes novels, a quiet, slightly melancholy meditation on a collection of moments. It is structured episodically, in four parts (Teacher, Father, Sister, Mother) that chronicle Billy's conflict and reconciliations with the people closest to him. The Teacher section, for example, has echoes of Lilly and her purple plastic purse, as Billy struggles to correct a humiliating misunderstanding with his new teacher. As he negotiates the parameters of his relationships, we see Billy grow and begin to come into his own, thereby fulfilling his father's prediction that this will be the titular "year of Billy Miller." Throughout the book, Billy takes tentative steps towards increased self-confidence and maturity, until at the climactic poetry reading, he shows us just how far he's come.

Billy Miller is primarily a character-driven book, and Henkes' beautifully complex characters are on full display. Billy, of course, is a wonderful, full-blooded second-grade boy, full of contradictions and half-baked ideas about the world. The other characters are fully realized as well, especially the occasionally moody stay-at-home artist dad. As always, Henkes uses his words sparingly but effectively, establishing character with telling details like the way the teacher involuntarily touches her hair when she thinks Billy is making fun of her chopstick hair accessories.

Stylistically, Henkes is a minimalist, and the early chapter book format is the perfect showcase for that. The scene where Billy and his mother bury a dead bird is one of the loveliest stretches of prose I've read this year - filled with sensory details - but it is almost entirely devoid of adjectives or adverbs. Joanne Rowling, take note!

If Billy Miller has a handicap at the Newbery table, it may be its episodic structure. Of course, that didn't keep The Graveyard Book from winning, and the two books share a thematic unity that ties the episodes together. My only other quibble: Henkes never really resolves Billy's conflict with Emma - a small but unsatisfying omission. Otherwise, this is definitely one of the year's best middle grade novels. 

Publication in September by Greenwillow Books (HarperCollins)

2014 Contenders: Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures, by Kate DiCamillo

Last spring, Jack Gantos and I were hangin’ out, shootin’ the breeze*, and talking about which new kids’ books we liked. He said that he really liked Mr. and Mrs. Bunny –Detectives Extraordinaire, partly because Horvath’s animals are smart. He remarked that just because your characters are animals doesn’t mean that they have to be dull-witted. I think he actually used a funnier word than that, but it’s been too long and I don’t remember what it was. If you see him around, ask him about stupid animal stories. 

Anyway, I think that’s what turns a lot of people off about talking animal stories – they associate the genre with cutesiness, preciousness, and simpleminded characters. That stereotype has a basis in reality, of course, especially in picture books. There are some authors who seem to think that if your story stinks, moving it to the animal kingdom will disguise the smell. 

 

Needless to say, Polly Horvath doesn’t fall into that trap, and neither does Kate DiCamillo. I thought of Horvath’s bunnies when I was reading DiCamillo’s newest, Flora and Ulysses, because the two books share a certain sensibility. As the Horn Book review of Mr. and Mrs. Bunny advised, “Look not for logic; this is a romp.” That advice holds true for Flora and Ulysses, whose plot is set into motion when a giant, multi-terrain vacuum cleaner sucks up an ordinary squirrel. Ulysses the squirrel, when resuscitated by Flora, retains extraordinary non-squirrellish powers (mainly flying, understanding human speech, and typing).

It is in the content of Ulysses’s typed compositions, however, that the novel diverges from the “madcap romp” genre. This wouldn’t be a Kate DiCamillo novel if it didn’t whack you in the head with pure beauty when you’re least expecting it. So what does a squirrel write, in DiCamillo’s world, when awakened from his dumb animal nature and presented with a typewriter? Why, he looks around at the trees and sky he loves, and at his new friend, and he writes poetry : “I love your round head / the brilliant green / the watching blue, / these letters, / this world, you.”

And then, because this is still a comic novel, he adds a postscript: “I am very, very hungry.” 

Until that poem appeared, I thought this novel was just okay, but that’s just so exactly the kind of poem a newly reverent squirrel would write that, once again, I found that Kate DiCamillo had totally pwned my heart.

I think this one may have a hard time at the Newbery table. It has those gorgeous DiCamillo moments – Ulysses’ poems, Flora’s struggles with her feelings, her father’s loneliness and awkwardness… But it’s also a comedy, and it doesn’t have the kind of character development you see in, say, The Year of Billy Miller. In Flora and Ulysses, the characters are cartoonish, and I think that’s an appropriate stylistic choice here, but it may count against them when it’s time to vote. Then, too, I’m not sure the sentence-level writing is all that special, for the most part, when compared to Billy Miller or Hokey Pokey. Neither are the settings. Thematically, it shines, but that may not be enough. 

And I should mention the illustrations. These are the “illuminated” adventures of Flora and Ulysses, meaning that some of the plot is advanced by comic strips drawn by K.G. Campbell. They tie in thematically with Flora’s interest in comics and superheroes, but they mean that the book could fall into the same liminal space occupied by Brian Selznick, though not to the same extent.

In any case, I like it a whole lot, and I think Jack Gantos would too.

*Okay, fine. He was here for an author visit and we were waiting for a class to arrive. 

Publication in September by Candlewick Press

2014 Contenders: Clementine and the Spring Trip, by Sara Pennypacker

Clementine and the Spring Trip is the sixth book featuring Clementine and her family, marking author Sara Pennypacker's return to the series after last year's stand-alone Summer of the Gypsy Moths. The novel is centered around Clementine's school visit to Plimoth Plantation, which requires our third-grade heroine to ride the olfactory disaster that is Bus Seven, and to deal with the fourth-graders' restrictive rules about making noise while eating.

There's nothing in the Newbery criteria one way or the other about books that are part of a series. In practice, however, series that produce Newbery winners are usually recognized in some way fairly early in the sequence. The two highest-number series books that have ever won the Newbery, The Grey King (1976 award, 4th book in the series) and The High King (1969 award, 5th book in the series), both belonged to series that had won Honors for their second books (The Dark is Rising and The Black Cauldron, respectively). Recent committees haven't shown much interest in sequels in general; since 1985, the only winners that weren't either a stand-alone or the first in a series have been A Year Down Yonder (2001 award) and Criss Cross (2006 award), both of which were the second books in their respective sequences.

Precedents, of course, are made to be broken, and as the disclaimer at the end of so many investment commercials reminds us, past performance is not an indicator of future results. However, considered simply on its own merits, I don't think Clementine and the Spring Trip reaches the level of this year's top contenders. Clementine, of course, is a classic character, and her family is also sharply drawn, but I don't think all the supporting characters are fully three-dimensional. Really, the book that Spring Trip reminds me the most of this year is The Year of Billy Miller. Like that book, Spring Trip excels in its descriptions of its main character and family, as well as home and school. Both novels, however, seem to me to be less crisp beyond those tight circles, in a way that isn't true of The Real Boy or The Center of Everything.

This doesn't mean I didn't really enjoy Clementine and the Spring Trip -- it's a charming, clever read, and I like the way that the ending ties together all of the threads that have been introduced throughout the book. I hope it makes the Notables list this year. I don't think it's quite Newbery material though.


Published in March by Hyperion / Disney

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

2014 Contenders: Far Far Away, by Tom McNeal

Far Far Away is the story, as the narrator tells us at the outset, of a boy, a girl, and a ghost. The ghost, who is also the narrator, happens to be the spirit of Jacob Grimm, one half of the famous Grimm brothers. The boy is clairaudient - able to hear spirits - and the girl is an ebullient mischief-maker. Their story, and the story of their fairy-tale-ish town, Never Better, would be an idyllic one, if it were not for one additional character: the sinister Finder of Occasions. It is also this character's presence that calls into question whether the book falls within the prescribed Newbery age grange. When he makes his move, the story grows very dark indeed.

What do the Newbery criteria have to say about age-appropriateness?

2. A “contribution to American literature for children” shall be a book for which children are an intended potential audience. The book displays respect for children’s understandings, abilities, and appreciations. Children are defined as persons of ages up to and including fourteen, and books for this entire age range are to be considered. 

Many books fall obviously inside or outside the "up to and including fourteen" range. The Year of Billy Miller is in. Looking for Alaska is out (forgive the old example - I haven't read any YA this year, unless you count the title currently under discussion). Some books are more difficult to categorize. Age of protagonist can be a indicator, but not always - Hattie Ever After feels like a solid middle grade book, despite the fact that Hattie is seventeen or eighteen. Violence and/or sexual content can also catapult a book out of the Newbery range. If all else fails, you can fall back on a rule of thumb I think I first read on the child_lit listserv: a true children's book always ends on a hopeful note.

So how does Far Far Away measure up? Jeremy and Ginger, the main child characters, are fifteen - a little older than the Newbery range, but children do "read up." There's no sexual content more prurient than a chaste kiss on the lips. And the violence, while present, is more suggestive than graphic. Finally, the ending is categorically happy and hopeful, as befits the fairy tale structure.

BUT.

For its last third, just before the happy ending, the book turns into a true horror novel. There's no bloodshed or brute violence, but things grow uncomfortably dark. Darker than we imagine our Newbery books to be. As dark as real life can get, in fact.

At first that section made me say, "Welp, definitely not a Newbery contender!" And obviously, I won't be handing it to my seven-year-old. But I thought back to what I was reading when I was thirteen and fourteen, and you know what? Those were the years when I discovered Stephen King. I was reading The Shining, Misery, Carrie, etc. And I wasn't the only one. We were also passing around Flowers in the Attic in those days, and whatever V.C. Andrews lacked in literary quality she definitely made up for in pure creepiness. And, heck, in school we were reading Guy de Maupassant and Poe. For all their historical distance, those guys still pack a creepy punch.

Can we really say that Far Far Away is less appropriate for fourteen-year-olds than Maupassant and Poe? When we're supposed to be considering books for the entire age range?

I have a feeling that Far Far Away will make people too uncomfortable to get any Newbery love, but I would argue that it does fall within the Newbery range. And yes, by the way, it is distinguished - in character, in setting, in theme, in style, but probably most of all in plot. I can't think of another book this year that so effectively and methodically tightened the suspense noose. And when the trap was finally sprung, the payoff was dark - yes - but deliciously effective.  

Published in June by Knopf Books for Young Readers

2014 Second Takes: The Water Castle, by Megan Frazer Blakemore

I was looking forward to reading The Water Castle more than any other title on Sam's list. I am all about spooky old houses and baroque, intertwining plots. The intersection of fantasy, mystery, and science fiction is also an exciting place for me as a reader.

Sigh.

I'm afraid I'm with Nina Lindsay here. I just can't see any distinguished elements in this book.

Sam extolled the character development, but I disagree. The three main characters - Ephraim, Mallory, and Will - are reasonably well-developed, but they certainly don't measure up well beside Delphine of P.S. Be Eleven, Oscar of The Real Boy, or Billy Miller. The secondary characters, on the other hand, are either vague outlines (Ephraim's mother, Brynn, Mallory's dad) or caricatures meant to advance the plot (Price, Will's dad, Orlando Appledore). I agree with whoever said that Price seems to exist only to provide a foil for Ephraim's immaturity and ineptitude. Ditto Winifred Wylie, who's a total Nellie Oleson, and a foil for Nora. 

I can't find a lot to admire in the plot either. The multiple threads are handled clumsily, and a lot of the events feel forced. I was particularly disappointed in the sudden resolution of the conflict among Ephraim, Mallory, and Will. One minute they're enemies, and the next they're friends, and this is brought about by... what? A walk down a tunnel? That's a failing of both character and plot, actually.

Sam also admired the ambiguous ending, and the way the author doesn't spell out the solutions to the various mysteries. I actually agree with him on that, but it feels disingenuous after the reader has been bashed with the foreshadowing stick for the preceding 275 pages. You can't give a Dickens novel a Virginia Woolf ending. Or you can, I guess, but it makes for a jarring reading experience.

Some of the prose is well-crafted, stylistically, but that's not enough to save The Water Castle for me.

Some Post-2014 YMAs Thoughts From Sam

The very best perk of going to ALA Midwinter is probably being able to attend the Youth Media Awards in person. This is a picture of Rachael and I doing just that, albeit perhaps not with the most flattering of expressions on our faces.

I had been planning to live-tweet the awards, but I couldn't get a good enough connection on my phone to make that feasible. So instead, here are a few post-conference scattered thoughts as we finish up the awards year.

• We have another two-time Newbery winner! Kate DiCamillo, who won in 2004 for The Tale of Despereaux, takes home the medal for Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures.
• I'd like to go back and look at Flora & Ulysses now. Both Rachael and I had wondered if the illustrations contributed too heavily to the plot for the book to really work without them. Obviously, the committee either didn't have those same concerns or overcame them, and I'd like to read it again through that lens.
• Speaking of things I need to read, how about Paperboy? This one flew way, way under our radar, and neither of us read or reviewed it. It also didn't get a single vote in the final round of the Heavy Medal Mock Newbery. But that's why we have the actual committee, right? I'm really interested to read it now!
• It was not a great year to be one of my favorites. The Real Boy, The Center of Everything, The Hidden Summer, From Norvelt to Nowhere, and On a Beam of Light all came away with nothing. (Though I did really enjoy Doll Bones, and that one Honored, so there's something!)
•  But then again, it wasn't a good year to be a favorite in general. Also nothing for The Thing About Luck, The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, or Far Far Away.
• It was really nice to see The Henk take both a Newbery Honor (for The Year of Billy Miller) and a Geisel Honor (for Penny and Her Marble).
• This is the first time that Amy Timberlake has shown up in the ALA-sponsored awards, with her Newbery Honor for One Came Home.
• We're having Rita Williams-Garcia for our major author visit in April, and now we can add "2014 Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner for P.S. Be Eleven" to her intro.

It was a wonderful experience to be at the YMAs, and kudos are due to every one of the committees for their hard work and fine selections!

Now, on to the 2015 awards!

2016 Contenders: Cody and the Fountain of Happiness, by Tricia Springstubb

Cody and the Fountain of Happiness is the second Tricia Springstubb book we've reviewed this year, after Moonpenny Island. However, while Moonpenny Island is aimed at a traditional middle-grade audience, Cody is pitched younger, more to readers currently enjoying the Clementine books, or The Year of Billy Miller.

Cody's loose plot involves the beginning of the titular character's summer vacation. She makes a new friend, Spencer, by helping him find a lost cat, and her new babysitter turns out to be Payton, the object of her brother Wyatt's affections. There's also some drama involving her mother's promotion at work. All of these elements drift in and out of the book as it meanders towards its conclusion -- while it's a quick read, it's not exactly a propulsive one.

Moonpenny Island remains my favorite book of the year so far (although there are still some contenders I need to read). Cody works a lot less well for me, possibly because, even for a book for younger children, the stakes always feel so low -- particularly for Cody herself, whose problems often take a back seat to those of her mom, Wyatt, and/or Spencer. Kevin Henkes books often have the same issue, to take one example, but part of Henkes' genius is his ability to make problems that are trivial for adults take on weight and heft in the minds of his child protagonists. Cody doesn't achieve a similar effect, nor is its protagonist as memorable as Clementine or Ramona or Junie B. Jones.

That's not to say it's not an entirely pleasant book. The prose is solid, if not as poetic as that in Moonpenny Island, and it has its moments of humor. Even for a quasi-episodic novel, however, Cody is loosely structured -- the relationship between Wyatt and Payton, for example, ends on a weirdly sour note, and it seems odd for the book to finish with the characters discussing the party that's happening that night, rather than with them attending it. It's possible that Springstubb plans on writing more books about Cody and so is leaving some plot threads deliberately unresolved, but taken on its own, the ending really did seem a bit of a let-down to me.

At any rate, especially with how strong a book Moonpenny Island is, I don't think there's going to be a lot of room at the Newbery podium for Cody. One thing I'd be very interested in, however, would be getting an actual child reader's opinion of this one; it seems entirely possible to me that its target audience might enjoy it more than I did.


Published in April by Candlewick

Semi-Final Reading List: Sam Edition

Once again, it's that time of year -- the time when, in the interest of both thoroughness and preparing for the Maryland Mock Newbery, Rachael and I turn a closer eye to some of what seem to be this year's top contenders. There are a few more that we really want to read when we have a chance (Far Far Away, by Tom McNeal, and From Norvelt to Nowhere, by Jack Gantos, are high on that list), but for the most part, we're on to the Taking A Closer Look section.

Rachael has already explained the rules, so here's the list of four that she assigned me:
Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures, by Kate DiCamillo
The Year of Billy Miller, by Kevin Henkes
P.S. Be Eleven, by Rita Williams-Garcia
The Center of Everything, by Linda Urban

 To these I added:

Doll Bones, by Holly Black
The Thing About Luck, by Cynthia Kadohata


Probably something about torpedoes! Start reading when ready, Gridley!