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.