Newbery 1997

The View From Saturday
Author: E.L Konigsburg
Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction
Plot: A group of friends called the Souls enter a trivia competition.
Verdict: Awesomely woven story
My rating: 4 stars


A Girl Named Disaster
Author: Nancy Farmer
Genre: Fantasy
Plot: Nhamo runs away when her village attempts to marry her to a man with three wives.
Verdict: Great tale of survival
My rating: 4 stars


The Moorchild
Author: Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Genre: Fantasy
Plot: Sasaki is a girl wrongdoers not realize she is a changeling that replaced her parents' human child.
Verdict: Interesting changeling twist
My rating: 3 stars


The Thief
Author: Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Fantasy
Plot: A renowned thief is released from prison to steal an artifact for the king.
Verdict: I liked the ending twist
My rating: 3 stars


Belle Prater's Boy
Author: Ruth White
Genre: Fiction
Plot: Woodrow comes to live with his grandparents when his mother disappears.
Verdict: I love Woodrow's stories
My rating: 4 stars

Both The View From Saturday and A Girl Named Disaster stand out as my clear favorites.  Both books are excellently written with great characters.  Both authors have been on the Newbery list multiple times for good reason.  Konigsburg has two medals and an honor and Farmer has three honors ( I hope she finally wins one day).  Plot-wise, these books are completely different.  The View from Saturday is a book with an ensemble cast, The Souls, who are a quiz team for their school.  A Girl Named Disaster has a solo main character who spends most of the book on her own as she flees from an arranged marriage. 

Belle Prater's Boy is a realistic fiction book and I enjoyed Woodrow and his stories very much.  The sequel, The Search for Belle Prater, is also good.

The other two books are more on the myth/folktale type. They are decent reads but don't shine as brightly as the first two on the list in my opinion.  The Moorchild  delves into the realm of changelings, a term for a faerie child who is swapped for a human child.  The Thief is a rather interesting story of a notorious thief who is released from prison in exchange for stealing an item of importance.