Overdue! Part 1: Newbery winners

 Reading is like breathing:  if I cease to do it then I will no longer be alive.  I assure you that I am very much alive and thus I have indeed been reading.  I just haven't been composing blog posts with book reviews.  I *will* get back on track in 2023.

2022 was the Newbery centennial.  To mark that the ALA Retired Members Round Table book club chose Newbery winners as the prompt for our fifth Sunday Zoom meeting, which was October 31.   I chose The Door in the Wall by Marguerite DeAngeli (1950 winner).

 "Always remember to follow the wall far enough and there will be a door in it," Brother Luke advises Robin, a young boy suffering from a mysterious paralysis.    During an eventful year Robin encounters walls both real and metaphorical and manages to find doors in them.  

I first read this Newbery Medal winner about 60 years ago. All I recalled was:  Middle Ages, crippled boy, saving the castle.  Perhaps the impression of gentle heroism comes from Marguerite de Angeli's soft-edged illustrations (even the ruffians at the wayside inn look like jolly bad guys).   All these years later I note the lack of context -- though there is detail aplenty in the descriptions of Robin's activities there is no actual year, nor is the English king named.  Fortunately this 1989 reprint has cataloging-in-publication that says "Great Britain, Edward III, 1327-1377."   

Of the three Newbery Medal books set in Medieval England, I think that Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! (2008) is the best-researched and that Adam of the Road (1943) is the best tale.  Door in the Wall comes in third.

Rereading DITW led me to check out some of  Marguerite DeAngeli's historical fiction.  I re-read Yonie Wondernose, Thee, Hannah!, Skippack School, Up the Hill, and The Lion in the Box. DeAngeli's illustrations are sweet, rather like Tasha Tudor.   I now realize that the Pennsylvania setting appealed to my mother (her home state) so she'd have encouraged our interest in the stories.

Why did I remove the medal sticker? 

The RMRT discussion prompted me to to discover and re-discover other Newbery winners.

Johnny Tremain (1944 winner) was the re-discovery. 

I received this copy of Johnny Tremain when I was 10.  At first it was challenging (small print, a dense story) but by junior high and the second and third readings I was enthralled.   I've had the book on the shelf all these years and only now have I re-read it.    I remembered Lynd Ward's illustrations -- the color cover/frontispiece, the map of Boston on the endpapers, and the black/white illustrations at the beginning of each chapter. I remembered the font. I kind of remembered the story.   I've visited historic sites and read a lot of nonfiction and fiction about "Boston in revolt" (as the subtitle says) to put the story into context.  I loved it all over again.  

P.S.  I noted some distinctly 20th-century (1940's) terminology.  P. 90:  working "full-time." P. 102: "all the Lindas and Betsys, Pollys, Peggys, and Sallys of Lexington" -- Linda was hardly a common first name in 1775.   P. 137:  "have the guts to run off."  P. 140 "a grand kid." P. 1887: "a good guy. "  P. 222 "the schools were closed" (inference: public school schedules like nowadays). P. 232:  "pack her duds."  

P.S. 2  I wrote to Esther Forbes (in1965 or so) to ask what happened next.   I pasted her reply in my copy of the book.  She assured me that Johnny did marry Cilla "but not until he almost married that wretched Isannah in London after the war. She was what you'd call a 'glamor girl'."

P.S. 3  I have never seen the Disney movie. version..

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Number the Stars (1990 winner)  

Lowry's book is set in Denmark under Nazi occupation. It  is based on the true story of a Gentile family who helped their Jewish neighbors escape to safety in Sweden.  It can be difficult to explain the atrocity of the Holocaust to children but Lowry shows the bravery, compassion, and determination not only of the adults but also of ten-year-old Anne-Marie.

The Westing Game (1979 winner)

I completely missed this when it came out in 1978.   I would SO have loved it years before that when I was a middle-grader who devoured mysteries. The plot is convoluted and that's the point.  It well deserves the accolades and its classic status. (I was surprised at how contemporary it seemed -- of course no computers or internet, but the rest could be set today.)  The 2003 edition has an introduction by Raskin's editor Ann Durell that provides biographical and background.

King of the Wind (1949 winner) 

All I'd remembered about this one was "Godolphin Arabian." Now I've relearned what Godolphin was (an estate near Wales) and this story of one of the sires for the entire thoroughbred breed.

Bud, Not Buddy (2000 winner) 

  Bud-not-Buddy is a resourceful 10-year-old who gets himself out of a terrible foster home and on the road to finding his family.    He's developed guiding principles that he calls "Rules and Things" that help him along the way.   The story has some suspense, some humor, a lot of hope, and a triumphant conclusion.

I read the 20th anniversary paperback edition with informative supplements:  an introduction by Kwame Alexander, a foreword by the author, and an interview with the author.

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With these  I'm up to 44 out of 100.  #101 will be announced at the end of this month.  I hereby state that in 2023 I will read at least 31 more to get me up to 75.