Newbery 1986

Sarah, Plain and Tall
Author: Patricia MacLachlin
Genre: Historical Fiction
Plot: Sarah comes to live with Caleb, Anna and their father to see if she wants to be his new wife.
Verdict: Short and Sweet
My rating: 4 stars


Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun
Author: Rhoda Blumberg
Genre: Nonfiction
Plot: The true story of Commodore Perry coming to isolated Japan to make a trade agreement. 
Verdict: Interesting details
My rating: 3 stars


Dogsong
Author: Gary Paulsen
Genre: Historical Fiction
Plot: An Eskimo boy goes off to live in the wilderness with a team of dogs.
Verdict: Not my kind of book
My rating: 2 stars

I remember reading Sarah, Plain and Tall in fifth grade and watching the movie because my fifth grade teacher loved it but I didn't love it at the time.  Now that I have reread it as an adult, I like it more because I understand what it is to come in as the stepmother (granted, my stepchildren were a lot older).  It is a very short read. 

I did not know a lot about isolationist Japan, but Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun definitely did a good job of explaining why they were isolated and how they treated outsiders.  There are lots of drawings from the time period to help explain how people looked.  It would be a good idea to read this at the same time as Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus, which was a 2011 Newbery Honor Book.

Thankfully for me, this is the last Gary Paulsen book on the Newbery list so it is the last one I have to read.  I really am not a fan.  His writing is definitely aimed at boys (which is not a bad thing, but I am a girl, sorry, Gary) and I think you might actually enjoy Dogsong if you enjoy Eskimos and sled dogs.  The ending sealed my two star rating. 

Newbery 1979

The Westing Game
Author: Ellen Raskin
Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction/Mystery
Plot: The new residents of Sunset Towers try to unravel the mystery of Samuel Westing
Verdict: Great mystery
My rating: 4 stars


The Great Gilly Hopkins
Author: Katherine Paterson
Genre: Conteomporary Realistic Fiction
Plot: Gilly Hopkins moves into her new foster home determined to make trouble.
Verdict: I hated the ending
My rating: 2 stars

Both of the books from this year often appear on middle grade reading lists. 

The Westing Game is an awesome junior fiction mystery.  There are clues all over the place and in the classroom where they were reading this, the kids had to keep track of the clues to try to figure out what was going on. 

Katherine Paterson has three books on the Newbery list, and is one of the few authors to have won the medal twice.  I have to admit I was disappointed by The Great Gilly Hopkins after reading Jacob Have I Loved and  Bridge to Terebithia.  Terebithia has a pretty sad ending but the ending of Gilly Hopkins ruined the whole book for me.  It has also landed itself on the challenged list because of Gilly's use of profanity and the card that she sends to her African American teacher. 

Newbery 1980

A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal 1830-1832
Author: Joan Blos
Genre: Historical Fiction
Plot: Catherine is a teenage girl living in rural New England. 
Verdict: Really slow beginning
My rating: 3 stars


The Road From Home
Author: David Kherdain
Genre: Nonfiction
Plot: A young girl escapes the Armenian genocide by the Turks.
Verdict: Well written true story
My rating: 4 stars

This year seemed to have a historical theme.  A Gathering of Days is written in journal entries of varying length (as you would expect from an actual journal) but sometimes these entries are disjointed and it makes for an uncomfortable reading experience.  It also plods along in the beginning.  The plot picks up when Catherine's father decided to get remarried.  In contrast, The Road From Home is written in traditional chapters.  True stories can sometimes get very boggy but this one is edited well so it had a nice flow.  Both books would make a great edition to a social studies unit of each respective time period. 

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. 

Newbery 2015

The Crossover
Author: Kwame Alexander
Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction/Poetry
Plot: Josh and Jordan are twin brothers who play basketball in middle school. Things change when their dad gets sick and Jordan discovers girls
My verdict: Made me cry
My rating: 4 stars


El Deafo
Author: Cece Bell
Genre: Biography/Graphic Novel
Plot: Cece loses her hearing at age 4.  She struggles to understand in a world of speech and to fit in at school.
My verdict: Loved it!
My rating: 5 stars


Brown Girl Dreaming
Author: Jacqueline Woodson
Genre: Biography/Poetry
Plot: Woodson talks about her childhood.
My verdict: My favorite Woodson book
My rating: 4 stars

Once I finished reading all three books, I realized that none of them are "normal" novels.  We have two poetic novels and a graphic novel.  I am glad to see that the American Library Association is tipping its hat to "non traditional" novels when they have great content.  I can honestly say that I enjoyed all three books (even though I didn't think I would).

I find that poetic novels are quick and readable and often invoke an emotional response that you wouldn't normally get in a regular prose novel.  It is also great for biographies because you can get short snippets of a person's life easier in poetry. The Crossover is all about basketball.  I don't like basketball so I thought I would hate it.  However, the poetry drew me in and I ended up crying at the end.  Brown Girl Dreaming was being pegged as the winner for this year and I can see why.  This is an excellent autobiography of Woodson and it never has a dull moment. 

The book that I really wanted to read from this year was El Deafo.  The cover looked so intriguing.  To my knowledge, it is the first graphic novel ever to receive a Newbery honor.  There are several books on the Newbery list that address disabilities (A Corner of the Universe, Rules) but this author addresses her disability with a sassiness that makes the book so upbeat.  I loved how she used rabbits with their long ears as the characters.   Even if you don't like graphic novels, you need to give this one a try.

Series: The Dark is Rising

Series: The Dark is Rising Sequence
Author Susan Cooper
Genre: Fantasy
Plot: Three children and the youngest of the Old Ones, Will (who is 12) together with Merriman fight for the cause of Light in the face of a rising Darkness.  Each book is a different quest to find another piece of the whole.
Books:

1. Over Sea, Under Stone
2. The Dark is Rising
3. Greenwitch
4. The Grey King
5. Silver on the Tree 

My overall rating: 3 stars

Even though I read a lot of fantasy, I only discovered this series recently when finding Newbery books on Scribd.  I would classify this as high low fantasy as it is set in the real world but has epic quest features of high fantasy.

The book delves into British folklore, borrowing heavily from Arthurian legend along with Welsh elements and the greenwitch.  It bogged down at times so I wouldn't count it among my favorite fantasy. 

Newbery 2008

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village
Author: Laura Amy Schlitz
Genre: Historical Fiction/Theater
Plot: This book is a series of monologues for different people in a medieval village.
Verdict: Fun!
My rating: 4 stars


Elijah of Buxton
Author: Christopher Paul Curtis
Genre: Historical Fiction
Plot: Elijah goes on a journey into America after a thief
Verdict: The character's voice annoyed me
My rating: 1 star


The Wednesday Wars
Author: Gary D. Schmidt
Genre: Historical Fiction
Plot: Holling Hoodhood is the only student at school on Wednesday afternoons and his teacher has to figure out what to do with him.
Verdict: Surprisingly entertaining
My rating: 4 stars


Feathers
Author: Jacqueline Woodson
Genre: Realistic fiction
Plot: "Hope is the thing with feathers" for Frannie who deals with a new kid in class, her mother and her friend Samantha.
Verdict: Interesting
My rating: 3 stars

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! is a bit of an unusual choice for the medal as it's basically a collection of monologues.  However, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book as I found the characters that were speaking to be interesting and all the monologues tied together in the end, giving the book a good measure of coherence.   The author, Laura Amy Schlitz, won another honor in 2013 for one of the creepiest books on the Newbery list, Splendors and Glooms.

I was also surprised by how much I enjoyed The Wednesday Wars, a book about a boy who is the only student in class on Wednesday afternoons (because the Catholics are at Catechism and the Jews are at Synagogue) and the book is about his relationship with his teacher and how she opens his mind to new horizons.

Feathers was okay.  I didn't like it as much as Tupac and we'll see how it stands up to Brown Girl Dreaming.  I did not enjoy Elijah of Buxton at all as I did not like the voice the author used.