Grow Your Blog 2015

Welcome to my blog, especially to my visitors from Grow Your Blog!

A Bit of Background

My first love has always been reading.  I learned to read at a very young age (between age 3 and 4) and ever since I have devoured books.  My love for reading was rekindled in college when I took a children's literature course as part of my undergraduate degree.  The book we used for the class had a list in the back of all the Newbery Medal and Honor books and I thought at the time that it would be cool to try to read all the books on the list. 

The book is Literature and the Child and is actually a good reference guide for children's lit.

After college, life happened and I never thought about it again until 2012 when I was laid off from my job and found myself at home with a lot of time on my hands with two small children.  I decided to actually set the goal to read all the Newbery Medal and Honor books.

Educationally, I have a B.S. in Education and an M.A. in Teaching.  I am considering doing my doctorate in reading but I want to wait a few years before starting that enormous project.

Why Newbery?

The Newbery list appealed to me because it is one of the oldest awards for American children's literature.  I found that as a reader, I tended to stick to my favorite genre (sci fi/fantasy) and as a pre-service teacher, I decided that I needed a way to "expand my horizons." The Newbery list was a way to do that as it covers many different genres including nonfiction.  It is essentially a "cross-section" of literature.

Where Do I Get the Books?

I have been able to order most of the books I have read from my library's consortium.  I also own some books myself.  The 1922 and 1923 books are public domain and can be downloaded legally for free from the Gutenburg Project.  There are several books from the 1920s and 30s that are public domain because their copyrights were not renewed and you can find them in various places online to read legally.  I have also read several off Kindle Unlimited and Oyster.  Oyster has many books I would like to read, however, they do not have a Windows Phone app yet and I found it tedious to read off my laptop so I'm waiting for them to make an app.  Oyster gives you a 14 day trial and Kindle Unlimited does 30 days.

Many of the older books, especially the older honor books, are out of print and extremely hard to find.  Hopefully, many of them will become available digitally as they approach their public domain status. 

What Have I Found So Far?

So far, I have found the books that I have read to be high quality and enjoyable literature, with a few exceptions.  I have been especially impressed with the nonfiction books, considering I don't read a lot of nonfiction independently as I find it dry and boring much of the time.  The older books read a lot differently and it is interesting to see how writing styles and plots have evolved over 90 something years.

About This Blog

Once I have read all the medal and honor books for a year, I write a blog post.  For each book I list: the title, the author, the genre, a brief description, my verdict and my rating off Goodreads.  I then write a brief review of what I thought of the year.  I also post about certain book series and authors of note.

Because I wait until I have read all the books in a year, I do not post very regularly.  If you want a more instant way to follow what I read, I suggest following me on Goodreads.  You can reach my shelf through the Goodreads feed in the sidebar.

Obviously, more Newbery books come out every year, therefore, this blog is an ongoing project as the list grows with each passing year.

Thanks for stopping by!