Systematic Student [Search results for Newbery Honor] 

In my about me page, I mentioned that I love working my way through book lists. I have several that I am actively working through and many others on the side that would be nice to get to, one day. I thought I would spend a moment and introduce those lists that are an active part of my reading patterns.

THE NEWBERY AWARD

In 1922, the American Library Association (ALA) began awarding The John Newbery Medal to what they determined to be the most distinguished contribution to children's literature for that year. Because of the multitude of amazing books written each year, the committee is also allowed to acknowledge those books which did not make the final cut but are still worthy of recognition. These are given The Newbery Honor Medal. While not a exact system, and each year there are and will be people who disagree with the novel chosen as the recipient, I appreciate the effort made to recognize these books and make them more accessible to children. If you are a recipient of the Newbery Award, your book will likely never go out of print (and it's kept some doozys around) and most libraries and bookstores will carry a copy. As of today — 6/28 — I have read 67 out of the 89 winners. I'm almost there! I intend to read and own every Newbery Winner. I'm not as committed to reading every honor (there are almost 300) but I'd like to read many, if not all of them at some point.
THE PRINTZ AWARD

In 2000, the ALA added the Michael L. Printz Award to recognize those books which exemplify literary excellence in young adult literature. Like the John Newbery Award, each year a committee chooses which book most fits this criteria as well as recognizing the 'runners-up', which are awarded a Printz Honor. Because it's a newer award, I am aiming to read all of the winners and honors. I'd like to own many of them, but am not as committed to owning every one the way I am with the Newberys. So far, out of 11 winners I've read 3 and I've read 8 out of 41 honors. I've got a long way to go on this award, but I'm enjoying the process.

THE BBC'S THE BIG READ
In 2003, The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) conducted a survey to determine the nation's favorite books. The list is in 3 parts — The top 100 favorites, top 200 favorites and the top 21. The top 21 books were ranked by popularity, with the understanding that each author could only be represented once among the top 21 favorites. My focus is on the top 100 books, although it may shift to include the top 200 once I complete the first bunch. So far I've read 29 1/2 (got stuck getting all the way through The Lord of the Rings trilogy) but I've got several more on my immediate to-read list.

So, because I am, in every way, NOT a morning person, I am getting a bit of a late start on my read-a-thon. I brought all of my books out of storage yesterday to reorganize them, and find the books I'll be wanting to read this weekend. Well, I got a little bit (a lot) carried away and ended up staying up until 3am 'sorting' them. If I can get my camera to work, I'll take some pictures, but as of now, every time I try, it just dies. (Grr...)

I don't plan on spending a lot of time on my computer during the read-a-thon, but will get on periodically to take a break from reading, especially between books. So, I'll list below the books on my tentative to read now pile. Some of these books have been waiting to be read for years! I would love some input from you guys! What do you think I should read first? Next? Let me know what you are thinking! I'd love to hear your input!

* Maus I and Maus II
* Miracles on Maple Hill (Newbery Winner)
* The Little Prince
* Jonathan Livingston Seagull
* One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
* Kit's Wilderness (Printz Winner)
* Rascal (Newbery Honor)
* The Dark is Rising Sequence (5 books, Newbery Winner and Newbery Honor)
* Coraline
I'm a member of Goodreads and I have all the books I own listed on the site. You can in my blog to view my 'shelf' for books that I own, but haven't read yet. Feel free to take a look through the list and let me know if any others catch your eye that you think I should take a look at!

And maybe more. We'll just have to see what I'm in the mood for! My goal is 10 books, but we'll see how that goes! Wish me luck!

Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill received a Printz Honor award in 2008, and Carver: A Life in Poems by Marilyn Nelson won a Newbery Honor in 2002.

Both books are biographies written in verse. When I first heard about this idea, I was intrigued. Although I don't always love it, I do enjoy poetry and I've found that I really, really enjoy novels written in free verse (like Ellen Hopkins). I was very interested to see how reading a poetic biography would turn out, and I'm sorry to say that I was quite disappointed.

I read Carver first and I really expected to enjoy myself. By the time I got around to Sylvia, I was no longer expecting much. Some of the poems were thoughtful and insightful and made for interesting reading, but I never felt like I was really gaining that much knowledge about the lives of either GW Carver or Sylvia Plath. I would have much read an actual biography of each individual that then had these poems interspersed throughout the pages. In each book, there were brief notes offering a little additional insight into the person or time period the poem addressed, and I feel like I learned more about their lives, thoughts, and emotions from these tiny blurbs than from the poems, which I doubt was how I'm supposed to feel.

I feel like I'm missing a lot of essential information that is important for a biography to offer. I don't really feel like I know much more about these two people than I did before picking up the books.

Although I didn't particularly enjoy reading either 'biography' I believe I can understand why both the Printz board and the Newbery board decided to award these books an Honor. It is a unique idea that changes the way we view and understand historical figures. But, I don't think they did their subjects justice. Instead of being more interested in the story of their lives, or coming away more knowledgeable than I was before, I merely felt annoyed.

I don't know of any other biographies written in this style, but I believe I'm safe in saying, I won't be reading them.

As you know, this weekend I participated in the Read Your Own Books Read-A-Thon hosted by Monica over at The Bibliophilic Book Blog and I think I did quite well. The best/scariest part? I know I could have done better... We'll see where I take that for the next read-a-thon... Hmmm. Anyway, I know you are all interested in what I managed to get read so here it is.

I finished 13 1/2 books in 3 days.:)

On Friday, I read

* Maus I: My Father Bleeds History
* Maus II: And Here my Troubles Began
* Jonathan Livingston Seagull
* The Report Card
* The Tales of Beedle the Bard
* The Hundred Dresses (Newbery Honor Winner)
* Knee-Knock Rise (Newbery Honor Winner)

Saturday was slower, but I read

* Coraline
* The Little Prince
* Heart of Darkness

Sunday, I finished

* Over Sea, Under Stone
* The Dark is Rising
* Greenwitch
* and I read the last half of The Wonder Book aloud with my nephews.

It was a great weekend, and I'm really proud of the amount I managed to read. It will take a while, but reviews for all, or most, of these books should be coming soon!:)

How did you do on the read-a-thon?

I haven't signed up for any of the many challenges floating around the blogging world, but I want to. So, I'm finding some now that look like fun, and I'm gonna do it!!

The Book Vixen is hosting some challenges on her blog for 2011 that I think sound like a lot of fun. So, my first two challenges are both found on her site.

First, is the OutDo Yourself Reading Challenge: The goal here is to read more books than you read this year. Right now my count is right about 225, and I know that will go up by the end of the year, I've still got a whole month and a half! I don't know what my life will be like next year, and how much reading I'll be able to get done, so I'm going for the Out of Breath level, and just hoping to get at least 6-10 more books read than this year. I'll update at the end of the year and let you know how I did!

The second challenge is the YA of the 80s and 90s Reading Challenge. The name pretty much says what this challenge is about — reading those YA published in the 80s and 90s. There's no numerical requirements or levels — just a pick your own/read at your own rate. So, I'm setting my own goal. I've decided that I want to read all the books I currently own that fit this requirement. And, I'm also going to try and read the rest of the Newbery Honor books I have left over from the 80s and 90s. I'll try to write up a list in the future that's a little more specific, but for now, this is fine.

I'm not completely sure how many books I own were published in the 80s/90s, but I want to keep this realistic. So, I'm going to try and read at least 15 books that fit by the end of the year. If I meet that goal, I'm going to buy myself a prize. If I double that, I think I'll just have to give one of you a prize. So, if you have any recommendations for me, let me know!

So, this is what I've got as far as challenges so far. I love challenges, so I'm sure I'll find more eventually, but for now, it's a start! What challenges are you participating in?

The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner is the sequel to the Newbery-Honor winner, The Thief (read my review ). I was impressed by the intricate writing Turner managed in The Thief, and was very eager to continue with this series. Although the writing in each book is very similar, this tone is different between the two. The Thief is rather lighthearted and fun. It has its depth and importance, but the overall tone is fairly light. The Queen of Attolia is... not so much. The mood and feel of this book is considerably darker and heavier.

But really, that's okay, because I loved this book just as much, if not a little more than The Thief. Turner's writing is as compelling in this book as it was while reading The Thief, although the focus is also a little different. Where, to me, The Thief is primarily about the characters, with Gen (Eugenides) being our obvious focus, The Queen of Attolia is more about the story and the intrigues rampant in court life. The Thief was a story, but the characters are the most important part. In Queen, the characters are still very important and are well developed and complete, but we already saw the beginnings of their development in Thief, and can now focus on the importance of their individual and connecting stories.

Before, Gen was our narrator in The Thief, and unless I'm remembering wrong, he tells the whole story. In Queen, we are given other narrators to help Eugenides tell this story. Although I do love Eugenides, he has become one of my most favorite fictional characters, my favorite narrator in this book was the Queen, Attolia herself. I loved the way her mind worked, and trying to guess ahead of time what plots and tricks she was working through. The face she presents to the world is ruthless and hard. She doesn't appear to be overly conniving, but as we listen in on her thoughts, it is clear that she has a very keen mind, one that is constantly assessing and reassessing the situation and all it's possible implications.

The plot to the story holds a very tight, intricate weave, one I was anxious to watch pull together. Each character has their own motivators, and their own interests to promote. At some point, each character believes that they hold the advantage and it's not until the end, when everything begins to wrap up and come together that we really are able to understand what has been going on this whole time anyway.

Once again, I must also point out Turner's fantastic world building. She set up the mythology and the guidelines for her world in The Thief and continued to build upon them here. I love spending time in this world that Turner has created because it is vividly real and the characters are written so much like real people that I wonder why we can't be friends.

When Shlemiel went to Warsaw and Zlateh the Goat are both collections of short stories awarded a Newbery Honor in 1969 and 1967 respectively. They were written by Isaac Bashevis Singer, a Jewish author well known for his short stories, who received the 1978 Nobel Prize in Literature.

These two collections included several stories that I really enjoyed and many that I didn't much like. Several stories in each book took place in the city of Chelm and mentioned the 7 City Elders (described by the author as fools). One of the residents of that city is Shlemiel, who appears in several stories and is also, undeniably, a fool. Although I like to think I have a sense of humor, and I enjoy a good taste of the ridiculous every now and again, sometimes, it's just a little too much. The two collections contained just a few too many stories dealing with the utter foolishness of these people for me to truly enjoy the reading. To give a quick example, a short story from Zlateh the Goat entitled The Snow in Chelm begins like this:

Chelm was a village of fools, fools young and old. One night someone spied the moon reflected in a barrel of water. The people of Chelm imagined it had fallen in. They sealed the barrel so that the moon would not escape. When the barrel was opened in the morning and the moon wasn't there, the villagers decided it had been stolen. They sent for the police, and when the thief couldn't be found, the fools of Chelm cried and moaned.

For some, I'm sure these stories would be very enjoyable and amusing tales. However, reading story after story involving more and more absurdities became just a little too much for me. Between the two books, almost half the stories dealt in some way with the preposterous happenings of the residents of Chelm.

However, I generally found the stories that did not mention Shlemiel or the Elders (and people) of Chelm to be very entertaining, and often delightful. I especially enjoyed the stories, Rabbi Leib & the Witch Cunegunde, and Shrewd Todie & Lyzer the Miser and the message of Utzel & His Daughter Poverty from Warsaw. My favorites from Zlateh were the stories Fool's Paradise, and Zlateh the Goat. These stories are all clever and well written, often with a warm moral, subtly teaching the reader ways to improve and become better without beating you over the head with the moral.

For the most part, I enjoyed reading these stories. It's always nice to get a new look at a culture I know very little about. In the foreward to Warsaw, Singer mentions that while each are retold using his own language and ideas, several of the stories within came from legends and stories told by his mother and grandmother. I love the different folk tales from various cultures, so that was fun. I did enjoy reading these short stories, and am glad I picked them up.

The Voice that Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights by Russell Freedman is an in depth look at the life and career of Marian Anderson, and what impact her career had on the 1960s Civil Rights movement.

Before picking this book up, I didn't really know who Marian Anderson was. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't have told you who she was. When I think of the Civil Rights movement, I think of the main people associated with that — the ones you learn about in school — Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and the Montgomery, AL bus boycotters, the lunch counter sit in crew and Malcom X. I'd never thought much about performers and the impact they might have.

Marian Anderson was a young black woman who loved to sing. She sang in her church choir, and after a series of sacrifices made by both her and the members of her community and congregation, she was able to begin a successful singing career in the time when very few people who weren't ethnically Caucasian had a chance. Her abilities as a vocalist and her wide international fame made it possible for her to take a stance on equal rights and have people listen.

As her fame grew, she refused to sing for segregated audiences, and when Constitution Hall, owned by the Daughter's of the American Revolution in Washington D.C. refused her the chance to preform because she was black, she and her good friend, Elanor Roosevelt (the first lady) staged a free concert on the steps of The Lincoln Memorial.

She was an incredible woman, who didn't apologize to anyone for who or what she was. She had a firm sense of self, and a strong character. Reading this book, I was amazed at the impact she had on moving the Civil Rights Movement forward.

This isn't the first Freedman biography I've read, and I have to say that I like his style. It's easily accessible for younger kids, but contains enough information that they are a great starting place for adults as well. He uses a lot of photos to illustrate his points, and they really help to bring the subject of the biography (or photobiography) alive.

I read this book because it won the 2005 Newbery Honor Award, but it's a great book to read if you are interested in her life, classical singers, or the impact of some of the lesser known, but still influential, members of the Civil Rights Movement.

This clip is a video of Marian Anderson singing Ave Maria in German.

John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth, a Photobiography by Elizabeth Partridge is not a book I would have chosen to read on my own. I read it because I want to read every Printz Honor and Award, and this book won the Honor in 2006.

I've never been interested in the personal lives of celebrities. I just don't care. So, I wasn't expecting to love this book. And I didn't. But, that was probably more because I wasn't particularly fond of the subject matter than because of the writing or presentation of Partridge. The book is presented as a photobiography, which I generally enjoy. But, John Lennon was not really a person to admire, and I find it hard to enjoy reading any biography if I don't much care for the subject.

I really enjoy the music of The Beatles. I grew up listening to their music with my dad, and my favorites are always able to bring a smile to my face or call up a fond memory. And, there is no doubt about the fact that they changed the face and future of music. But, liking their music doesn't mean I'm terribly interested in their personal histories.

And really, John Lennon is not a person who made it easy to like him. I felt like most of the information related about Lennon was negative. He was moody, felt a huge sense of entitlement, just knew he was so misunderstood, and felt that he was above normal standards of conduct, even before they became super famous. It just got worse after. He wasn't terribly loyal, and turned away from the people who loved him most. He's not a person to look up to or aspire to be like. I find that I respect his music, but have very little, if any, respect for who he was.

Maybe that makes me a bad person, or maybe I'm just another one of those who misunderstands, but I don't really care. He wasn't a nice person, and I don't feel like I have to respect that.

I've decided that awards committees really like the photobiography. There are several photobiographies on the Newbery list, both winners and honors, and then this. The book is well written, well researched, and the information was presented well, but I don't know why it would be widely read, unless you are a huge Beatles or Lennon fan, or are like me and trying to read the whole list.

Figgs and Phantoms by Ellen Raskin won the Nebery Honor in 1975. Four years later, she won the Newbery Award for The Westing Game. I read The Westing Game several years ago, and I really enjoyed it. It was wonderfully complex and the characters were simply delightful. (More on that later). So, I was actually quite excited to read Figgs and Phantoms.

Alas... Figgs just didn't work for me.. It was quite the disappointment. I started this book, not really knowing what to expect about the story itself, but looking forward to it, because I had so enjoyed The Westing Game. Sigh.

Figgs and Phantoms is about a family, The Figgs, who are all wildy quirky, except the youngest daughter/niece, Mona. She is decidedly normal, hates her family's weirdness, and is terribly embarrassed by what she believes the people of her town, Pineapple say about all those crazy Figgs.

I thought that Raskin was trying too hard with this novel, and as a result she missed the mark just about everywhere. Every single character has something weird, wacky, crazy, or unbelievable about them. All of them, except Mona. (She's just bitter about life and everything in it. Rather than make her quirky, I'd say she's just a teenager.) It got to be a little bit too much for me. Her mom, Sister Figg Newton (Newton being her married name) tap dances. All the time. Everywhere. Her uncle Truman, the human pretzel and sign maker (but horrible speller). And the list goes on and on and on. There was too much for me to believe it. Sometimes I'd look at the book and want to shout at the author — Enough already! I get it! They are weird. Can we move on please?! — Or something like that anyway...

The majority of the book focuses on Mona and her angst. I think it's supposed to be about her struggle to find her place in life, and accept her family as they are but it always just felt like angst to me, and not the good, realistic kind. Just the really annoying, get over yourself already type. Raskin makes hints about what she is supposed to be learning, and she gives us subtle clues here and there, but by that point, I was so fed up with Mona's whining and general annoying-ness that I didn't care. I just wanted the book to end. The only person Mona feels close to is her Uncle Florence. Everyone else is ridiculous, embarrassing and needs to just stop so that Mona can stop feeling embarrassed to go out in public. But, Uncle Florence is sick, and getting sicker.

The Figgs believe that when you die, you go to a place they call Capri. It's been written about in a journal passed down the family. The family meets together periodically for a night of reading from the family journals about Capri, a ritual they call 'Caprification'. Mona, or course, barely participates but when her uncle Florence dies (not really a spoiler, because it gives strong and obvious hints on the back cover) Mona knows she must find Capri so she can either bring her uncle back, or live with him in Capri. Even more weirdness ensues.

Nothing in this book was very believable to me. I had a hard time believing that much of what happened, and in the order or way they happened would be possible. Very often we were taken from point A to point F and just expected to believe that this was the natural progression of events, never mind the fact that we missed points B-E in the process.

On a positive note, I did enjoy several of the characters and their quirks, especially in the beginning. The secondary characters are often delightfully fun and I actually really enjoyed their time on the page. Truman's misspellings were fun (even one sign where he misspells his own name) and I especially liked the idea of Romulus and Remus Figg, the Walking Book of Knowledge and the Talking Adding Machine, respectively. I did wish the secondary characters had been more a part of the novel, and had been more fleshed out. I don't think I would have been as annoyed by the amount of quirks these characters had it they had also had more personality. But no. They were written as if their unique trait was all there was too them. It was how they were defined, described, and we didn't get to see any more than that. I do recognize that much of this is probably because that is how Mona sees them, but knowing why doesn't make it any less annoying.

All in all, I'd probably say this is one to skip. I don't know that I would really recommend it to very many people. I read it because I enjoyed The Westing Game, and because, as you (should) know, I'm trying to read the Newbery list. But, it's one I feel I could probably have done with out. There wasn't anything really special about it. The rating came really easy too. I finished the book, looked at it a moment, and then said — Meh.

If you've read it, I'd love to hear what you thought about it! Let me know!