An introduction to the Newbery project I’m undertaking; how I’ll go about it, a bit about my personal history with these books and why I’m revisiting it now.
I can’t remember learning to read, if I’m being entirely honest. As far as my currently tangible memory is concerned, I’ve been able to read as long as I’ve been alive. I do remember having to develop in it, both in vocabulary and thematic comprehension, but those felt as if they almost happened on accident while I was on the roller coaster of obsession. The first time I really, truly sat down with books in a way that was educational over romantic was when I, being in the 4th grade and very prideful of my partnership with stories, I joined the Newbery team for my school.
The Newbery Award is a yearly medal given by the American Library Association to the “most distinguished contribution to American literature for children”(1). The competition surrounding this award is team-based trivia; a group of children, I want to say there were 4 or 5 on mine, all spend the entire year reading the books who have won the award since it began in 1922. At the end of the year, everyone traveled to where the bowl was being held, and tried to use our collective knowledge of the contents of these works to answer questions faster than anyone else. The competition itself was a great memory, driving to the other side of my home island of Hawaii with my parents and teammates to spend my day talking about my favorite pass-time could never not be. But, the more formative part of the experience by far was the year spent leading up to it, being introduced suddenly to a far wider and often more mature set of books than I had ever before been given reason to seek out. A couple of the books I was already familiar with, like Louis Sachar’s Holes or Robert O’Brien’s Mrs.Frisby and the Rats of NIMH - but most were completely unfamiliar, especially as you trudge back through the annuls of the list.
It was equal parts wonderful and awful, a glorious challenge in my relationship with stories as a whole. The fun of playing detective in The Westing Game [Ellen Raskin] or saving the kingdom with soup in the Tale of Desperaux [Kate DiCamille] made some of the entries fly by in a weekend. In comparison, the dreariness of reading about rural Bulgarian life made some weeks drag by (sorry Monica Shannon, it’s not your fault Dobry was published in 1934 and doesn’t strike the interest of a 9 year old who has access to a Playstation).
What I remember most though, more than anything else, is the incredible emotional complexity of the narratives I was engaging with. Often, I had the feeling that there was something here I was learning but wouldn’t understand for a long time - like having the seeds of adulthood planted lovingly inside of my heart. There are so many instances it’s hard to even pick examples; which is what I hope to explore in this project, more than anything. When we have a group of adults curate a selection of books for children yearly, not by popularity but by “distinguished contribution”, what do we end up with? What, of the things these books gave me as a child, were understandable then versus what’s understandable to me now? How has our opinions about what we should teach children and what they will understand and how to get there changed in the last hundred years of “American” literature? I’m going to read every Newbery winner, from 1922 until the present, in chronological order. And I’m going to share my thoughts here, about what there is to find, both in the pages and between them, and what that shows about us and our relationship to childhood as a whole.
The format I’m thinking will be split up into two main sections, decades and individual essays. For each book, I’ll use a rating and annotation system to define the main experience I had while reading, as well as any notable takeaways from them. If there are any books that the takeaways are very long, or I just really like them, I’ll make them into their own individual essays. Otherwise, they’ll appear only in the review of each decade of books, wherein I’ll assess each and then leave some more general thoughts on the tones, themes, and subjects that seemed prevalent for that time period.
The rating system will be a basic 1 to 10 in these categories: quality of prose, emotional impact, complexity, appeal to a child audience, appeal to an adult audience, and overall how interesting the story itself was throughout. I’ll also note any prevalent themes and tone and historical context on the side, not rated. I reserve the right to change this as I go; I’ll try to make any meaningful changes to the system retroactively, but in the case of small or stylistic changes, I’ll just move on with the new format.
In truth, I don’t know exactly what I look to get out of this project. I don’t know if it’ll reveal anything I don’t already know, or if there is any value for anyone else in my thoughts. But it feels like there’s something here, hidden in this history of words and youth, that wants to be sought out - and so I shall. For the single year I competed on the Newbery team, I read about 43 books, and so a little more than half of these will be new experiences, while the rest I will revisit with hazy memory. My opinions will be biased by this and many other things I’m sure, so do not take this as professional research of any kind - I’m just a person in love with stories, and I believe the stories we tell our children become some of the most important in us all.
References
(1) American Library Association. Association for Library Service to Children. “John Newbery Medal”. https://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newbery
An introduction to the Newbery project I’m undertaking; how I’ll go about it, a bit about my personal history with these books and why I’m revisiting it now.
I can’t remember learning to read, if I’m being entirely honest. As far as my currently tangible memory is concerned, I’ve been able to read as long as I’ve been alive. I do remember having to develop in it, both in vocabulary and thematic comprehension, but those felt as if they almost happened on accident while I was on the roller coaster of obsession. The first time I really, truly sat down with books in a way that was educational over romantic was when I, being in the 4th grade and very prideful of my partnership with stories, I joined the Newbery team for my school.
The Newbery Award is a yearly medal given by the American Library Association to the “most distinguished contribution to American literature for children”(1). The competition surrounding this award is team-based trivia; a group of children, I want to say there were 4 or 5 on mine, all spend the entire year reading the books who have won the award since it began in 1922. At the end of the year, everyone traveled to where the bowl was being held, and tried to use our collective knowledge of the contents of these works to answer questions faster than anyone else. The competition itself was a great memory, driving to the other side of my home island of Hawaii with my parents and teammates to spend my day talking about my favorite pass-time could never not be. But, the more formative part of the experience by far was the year spent leading up to it, being introduced suddenly to a far wider and often more mature set of books than I had ever before been given reason to seek out. A couple of the books I was already familiar with, like Louis Sachar’s Holes or Robert O’Brien’s Mrs.Frisby and the Rats of NIMH - but most were completely unfamiliar, especially as you trudge back through the annuls of the list.
It was equal parts wonderful and awful, a glorious challenge in my relationship with stories as a whole. The fun of playing detective in The Westing Game [Ellen Raskin] or saving the kingdom with soup in the Tale of Desperaux [Kate DiCamille] made some of the entries fly by in a weekend. In comparison, the dreariness of reading about rural Bulgarian life made some weeks drag by (sorry Monica Shannon, it’s not your fault Dobry was published in 1934 and doesn’t strike the interest of a 9 year old who has access to a Playstation).
What I remember most though, more than anything else, is the incredible emotional complexity of the narratives I was engaging with. Often, I had the feeling that there was something here I was learning but wouldn’t understand for a long time - like having the seeds of adulthood planted lovingly inside of my heart. There are so many instances it’s hard to even pick examples; which is what I hope to explore in this project, more than anything. When we have a group of adults curate a selection of books for children yearly, not by popularity but by “distinguished contribution”, what do we end up with? What, of the things these books gave me as a child, were understandable then versus what’s understandable to me now? How has our opinions about what we should teach children and what they will understand and how to get there changed in the last hundred years of “American” literature? I’m going to read every Newbery winner, from 1922 until the present, in chronological order. And I’m going to share my thoughts here, about what there is to find, both in the pages and between them, and what that shows about us and our relationship to childhood as a whole.
The format I’m thinking will be split up into two main sections, decades and individual essays. For each book, I’ll use a rating and annotation system to define the main experience I had while reading, as well as any notable takeaways from them. If there are any books that the takeaways are very long, or I just really like them, I’ll make them into their own individual essays. Otherwise, they’ll appear only in the review of each decade of books, wherein I’ll assess each and then leave some more general thoughts on the tones, themes, and subjects that seemed prevalent for that time period.
The rating system will be a basic 1 to 10 in these categories: quality of prose, emotional impact, complexity, appeal to a child audience, appeal to an adult audience, and overall how interesting the story itself was throughout. I’ll also note any prevalent themes and tone and historical context on the side, not rated. I reserve the right to change this as I go; I’ll try to make any meaningful changes to the system retroactively, but in the case of small or stylistic changes, I’ll just move on with the new format.
In truth, I don’t know exactly what I look to get out of this project. I don’t know if it’ll reveal anything I don’t already know, or if there is any value for anyone else in my thoughts. But it feels like there’s something here, hidden in this history of words and youth, that wants to be sought out - and so I shall. For the single year I competed on the Newbery team, I read about 43 books, and so a little more than half of these will be new experiences, while the rest I will revisit with hazy memory. My opinions will be biased by this and many other things I’m sure, so do not take this as professional research of any kind - I’m just a person in love with stories, and I believe the stories we tell our children become some of the most important in us all.
References
(1) American Library Association. Association for Library Service to Children. “John Newbery Medal”. https://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newbery