Newbery 1999

Holes
Author: Louis Sachar
Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction
Plot: Stanley Yelnets is sentenced to dig holes in a dried up lake for a crime he didn't commit.
Verdict: Great story!
My rating: 4 stars


A Long Way from Chicago
Author: Richard Peck
Genre: Historical Fiction
Plot: Joey and Mary Alice visit their grandmother in the country in 1929.  Each chapter is a different year that they visited.
Verdict: Wild!
My rating: 4 stars

I really loved both these books.  Both are entertaining and easy to read.

I did not think I would like A Long Way from Chicago but it was a great read.  Peck's sequel, A Year Down Yonder, won the Newbery Medal in 2001.

Series - Crispin

Book Series: Crispin
Author: Avi
Genre: Historical Fiction
Plot: Set in 1377, Crispin is forced to flee or be killed after his mother dies.  He searches for freedom while traveling with his companion Bear (and later Troth and Owen).
Books:

1. Crispin: The Cross of Lead
2. Crispin: At the Edge of the World
3. Crispin: The End of Time

Overall Rating: 4 stars 

This is a nice historical fiction series written by Avi.  His writing in this book is fast paced which is a nice change from other historical fiction I've read where it reads like a snail-paced textbook.  The books fall in quick succession so the time period covered by the series is actually pretty short - perhaps a few months at the most.  I can see young boys really getting into this series because of the pacing and the main character being a young boy.

On a separate note, I love how Avi brings out how uneducated peasants of that time really were.  Crispin doesn't know much about anything and it really brings into perspective how valuable education is.

Newbery 2003

Crispin The Cross of Lead
Author: Avi
Genre: Historical Fiction
Plot: Crispin is forced to flee after his mother dies because he is falsely accused of a crime and faces certain death if he is caught.
Verdict: Great medieval story
My rating: 4 stars


The House of the Scorpion
Author: Nancy Farmer
Genre: Science Fiction
Plot: Matteo lives in futuristic Mexico where he finds out that he is a clone of El Patron.
Verdict: Chilling concept but fantastic
My rating: 5 stars


Pictures of Hollis Woods
Author: Patricia Reilly Giff
Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction
Plot: Hollis Woods is a foster child who has been bounced from house to house.  As she lives with her current foster parent, she reflects back on her last placement when things went horribly wrong.
Verdict: I was relieved at the happy ending
My rating: 3 stars


Hoot
Author: Carl Hiaasen
Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction
Plot: Roy tries to untangle the mystery of the barefooted running boy while developers have problems with vandalism at the site of a new Mother Paula's Pancake House
Verdict: Excellent satire and not overly environmental
My rating: 3 Stars


A Corner of the Universe
Author: Ann M. Martin
Genre: Historical Fiction
Plot: Hattie's world changes when her mentally retarded uncle Adam comes to live with her grandparents.
Verdict: Sad ending
My rating: 3 stars


Surviving the Applewhites
Author: Stephanie S. Tolan
Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction
Plot: Jake comes to the Applewhites' "unschool" and gets involved in their crazy family and a production of The Sound of Music
Verdict: Riotous Fun
My rating: 4 stars

This was a jammed packed year of good books for Newbery with a wide variety of storylines and moods. The House of the Scorpion, Pictures of Hollis Woods, Crispin, and A Corner of the Universe are extremely dark but Hoot and Surviving the Applewhites are humorous.  The House of the Scorpion would have been my pick for the year with Crispin a close second.  I was pleasantly surprised by the Applewhites and overall I think I can say I liked every book from this year. 

Allow me to highlight the following:

• Carl Hiaasen is actual an author of adult books and a satirist.  This was his first book for children.  He also resides in Florida, the setting of the book.
• Crispin was Avi's 50th book.  
• Ann M. Martin wrote The Babysitter's Club series.  
• Nancy Farmer lived along the Mexican border for a time which is where her knowledge of Mexico comes from

Series - Charlie Bone

Book Series:  Charlie Bone
Author:  Jenny Nimmo
Genre: Fantasy
Plot:  Charlie Bone goes to school at Bloor's Academy, a school for gifted children.
Books:

1. Midnight for Charlie Bone
2. Charlie Bone and the Time Twister
3. Charlie Bone and the Invisible Boy
4. Charlie Bone and the Castle of Mirrors
5. Charlie Bone and the Hidden King
6. Charlie Bone and the Beast
7. Charlie Bone and the Shadow
8. Charlie Bone and the Red Knight

Overall Rating: 3 stars

This series is kind of a "dark Harry Potter."  Hogwarts was mostly a happy, cheerful and safe environment but the Bloor family are the antagonists in this series so Bloor Academy is a mostly hostile environment.  There are two kinds of children at Bloor's: gifted and endowed.  The "endowed" children have special powers and are mostly descendants of the Red King, an ancient king and magic-user.  The early books involve Charlie learning about his endowment and wondering what happened to his father, who mysteriously vanished.  The later books delve more into the mysteries surrounding the Red King.  Unlike Harry Potter, the book doesn't entirely happen at the school, since the children go home on weekends so places in the town like the Pets' Cafe are featured prominently.

Like J.K Rowling, you can see Nimmo's writing evolve with each book.  

Newbery 1981

Jacob Have I Loved
Author: Katherine Patterson
Genre: Historical Fiction
Plot: Louisa watches as her younger twin Caroline gets all the attention from her parents and struggles to make a place for herself.
Verdict: Sibling rivalry
My rating: 3 stars


The Fledgling
Author: Jane Langdon
Genre: Fantasy
Plot: Georgie is an 8 year old girl who learns to fly from a goose.
Verdict: Boring and convoluted
My rating: 1 star


A Ring of Endless Light
Author: Madeline L'Engle
Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction
Plot: Vicki spends the summer watching her grandfather die and being pursed by three different boys and working with dolphins.
Verdict: Nice coming of age story
My rating: 3 stars

Two of these books are great but the other one is a total waste of time.  Both Jacob Have I Loved and A Ring of Endless Light have a "coming of age" theme for young girls.  The girls face different circumstances but a similar overall theme.  I enjoyed both.  Both authors (Patterson and L'Engle) are also very well known and are on the Newbery list multiple times.  I enjoy reading both of them.

The Fledgling, on the other hand, bored me to tears.  I don't know how it was considered "a great book."  The characters were tedious and the plot was almost non existent.  Given the setting, I suspect that it was supposed to have transcendentalist overtones in that but I've found that trying to fuse philosophical underpinnings into a book often ruins the book.

Newbery 2011

Moon Over Manifest
Author: Clare Vanderpool
Genre: Historical Fiction
Plot: Abeline is sent to live in Manifest, Kansas while her father works on a railroad job.  She works to uncover the mystery of a box of items and letters she finds in her room
Verdict: One plot line was great and the other was lacking
My rating: 3 stars


Turtle in Paradise
Author: Jennifer L. Holm
Genre: Historical Fiction
Plot: Turtle is sent to live with her aunt in Key West during the Great Depression. 
Verdict: The ending will make you want to scream
My rating: 3 stars


Heart of a Samurai
Author: Margi Preus
Genre: Historical Fiction
Plot: Based on actual events, 5 young Japanese fisherman are stranded in a storm and rescued by a whaling boat. The youngest, John Hung, is befriended by the boat's captain and has adventures in America.
Verdict: Great adventure story
My rating: 3 stars


Dark Emperor and Other Poems of Night
Author: Joyce Sidman
Genre: Poetry
Plot: A book of poems about creatures of the night.
Verdict: The illustrations are gorgeous!
My rating: 4 stars


One Crazy Summer
Author: Rita Williams-Garcia
Genre: Historical Fiction
Plot: In the summer of 1968, three girls travel from New York to Oakland, CA to be with their mother who abandoned them after the birth of the youngest.  Their mother still wants nothing to do with the and sends them off to camp every day.
Verdict: You will want to repeatedly slap their mother
My rating: 3 stars

This seemed to be a year for historical fiction.   Moon over Manifest and Turtle in Paradise are so similar in terms of theme and setting but they go in slightly different directions.  I don't think Moon over Manifest deserved the medal. I would have rather seen Heart of a Samurai or Dark Emperor take it.  I hate to say it but Moon and Turtle just had plot lines that I felt had been done before.  In contrast, Heart of a Samurai had a fresher concept.

Heart of a Samurai is set in the period of Imperial Japan when Japan was isolated from the outside world.  Another Newbery book worth reading with it is the nonfiction book Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun.

The Dark Emperor is a picture book of poems.  Picture books are not often honored by the Newbery committee. This one has extremely awesome art.

One thing I credit reading the Newbery list with is getting me to branch out and read more ethnic literature.  This year has an example of that with One Crazy Summer.   It is a historical fiction novel set in 1968 and has a lot of tie ins with the Black Panthers (the girls' mother is working with them).  It would make a very good read to go along with civil rights discussions.  I thought the girls' mother was a bit of a jerk and I constantly wanted to slap her for being a bad mother, as she pretty much leaves the girls to their own devices and doesn't seem to pay any mind to them.

Newbery 1924

The Dark Frigate
Author: Charles Boardman Hawes
Genre: Historical Fiction
Plot: Philip Marsham joins the crew of the Rose of Devon only to have the ship taken over by pirates and be pressed into the service of the pirates.
Verdict: Swashbuckling
My rating: 3 stars

There's not a ton to talk about for the books of 1924 as there was only one book to read.  I was intrigued before I read it. My husband and I were looking online to find out if the book was public domain or not and he ran across some reviews of the book saying that they wouldn't let their children read the book because of the violence.  My response: what violence?  Yes, the pirates kill the crew but it's not terribly graphic like a lot of modern literature.  If you're a fan of Treasure Island, I would recommend the book.  My only reason for keeping my rating at 3 stars was that it took 70 pages to get to any decent action.