-
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Interestingly, I liked this, but not as much as the previous Newbery winner (Rifles for Watie). This seemed a little more fluffy and honestly, wasn't quite as realistic on the heavy things for me. I don't think anyone in that era, for example, would think it funny to name a boat "Witch". It just plain wouldn't happen ( Read more... ) -
Rifles for Watie
I'm so glad I got back on the Read the Newbery train! I really liked this. It seems a lot of these types of books gloss over some of the realism, but this didn't - while also seeming appropriate to the intended audience ( Read more... ) -
Ginger Pye ~ Eleanor Estes
I read this because a couple friends and I are on a mission to read all the Newbery award winners, so I haven't read any of the other Pye books by Eleanor Estes. I mention that solely because I can't say whether reading them would have made me more or less interested in this book and, more specifically, Estes' narrative style.
I had a really ( Read more... ) -
Ginger Thai
I was reading this shortly after getting the newest iPhone, which has the "personal assistant" Siri as a feature on it. I wanted to send wandererjen a message, so I dictated it to Siri. "Ginger Pye" became "Ginger Thai", which made me want this to be an in-person book club where we could serve Thai food at our meeting. *sigh ( Read more... ) -
Amos Fortune, Free Man ~ Elizabeth Yates
This may be the only book I've ever read about a slave living in the North rather than the South. And even though this was just the story of one man in particular and even though there are probably many other stories wherein things didn't work out quite as well as they did for Amos (relatively speaking), I think there's value in reading a different ( Read more... ) -
The Door in the Wall
Here's my long and detailed review ( Read more... ) -
The 21 Balloons ~ William Pene du Bois
Guy builds the hot air balloon to end all hot air balloons and intends to float all the way around the world on it, but instead he crash lands on a secret island filled with diamonds where 20 families live in the lap of luxury, secluded from the rest of the world and perfectly content ( Read more... ) -
King of the Wind ~ Marguerite Henry
Liked:
mute Moroccan boy (unusual main character)
I kept being surprised by turns in the story
the horse didn't talk (phew!) and neither did the cat
the Godolphin Arabian really existed
descriptions of characters
... the [sultan] reminded him of a camel. His eyes were hidden by heavy folds of eyelids, like a camel's, and his lips were thick and slit in ( Read more... ) -
Exactly how many horses are in the Newbery lexicon anyway?
King of the WindWell, this was better than I expected it to be, and went pretty quickly, so it earned itself a third star. But it didn't excite me at all. Evidently it's a semi-true story about a real horse breed, so that's interesting, but there was no lesson learned, no deeper meaning ... it's just a horse book. And as I'm not really interested ( Read more... ) -
Miss Hickory ~ Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
I've learned my lesson. When the Newbery girls all say a book is weird and I, after 50 pages or so, disagree with them and privately think they're getting just a bit too picky with these old children's books, I really should just keep my thoughts quiet until I actually finish the book.
Because ending the book by having your main character's head ( Read more... )