Missing May
Author: Cynthia Rylant
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Plot: Summer's Aunt May dies suddenly and her Uncle Ob seeks a spiritualist to local her spirit.
My rating: 2 stars
What Hearts
Author: Bruce Brooks
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Plot: We see four episodes of Asa's childhood.
My rating: 2 stars
The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural
Author: Patricia McKissack
Genre: Folk Fiction
Plot: This book is a collection of African American folk/ghost stories.
My rating: 3 stars
Somewhere in the Darkness
Author: Walter Dean Myers
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Plot: Jimmy's father, Crab, comes home to take his estranged son on a road trip.
My rating: 3 stars
Three of the four books this year are realistic fiction and all three are rather dark. Missing May deals with the death of Summer's aunt, What Hearts deals with Asa's parents divorcing and Asa's tumultuous relationship with his mother's new boyfriend and Somewhere in the Darkness deals with Jimmy's escaped convict father who has a serious illness. The Dark-Thirty is the wildcard in the bunch since it is a collection of Southern and African American folk stories. It would be a great, diverse "spooky" read for around Halloween.
Overall, this was a bit of a lackluster year of Newbery reads for me. None of the books reached out and grabbed me. The only one I found remotely interesting was The Dark-Thirty.
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