Place Your Bets
So, just for fun – place your bets! Who do you think *will* win the Newbery Award and Honors? How do you *want* to win???
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About Sharon McKellar
Sharon McKellar is the Supervising Librarian for Teen Services at the Oakland Public Library in California. She has served on the Rainbow List Committee, the Notable Children’s Recordings Committee, The Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Committee, and the 2015 Caldecott Committee. You can reach her at sharon@mckellar.org.
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Without having the benefit of discussion with other colleagues, my choice for winner would be your Mock Newbery winner, ”
my post was cut short. My choice for winner is “The Porcupine Year.” Runner up would be “The Underneath”. I really like the spookiness of it.
I am really hoping that “The Underneath” will win. My third graders have been captivated by Appelt’s stunningly beautiful prose. I loved the book when i read it over the summer, and reading it aloud has only further heightened my enjoyment. Each morning after about 20 minutes of “The Underneath” my class begs for “just one more” chapter (luckily the chapters are extremely short!), and usually they convince me to pick back up with a chapter or two before dismissal. The multi-character/story structure (which i worried would be difficult for my class-all english language learners- to follow) is in fact one of the book’s most compelling features. My students don’t want to stop listening until we’ve caught up with all the individual story threads each day. Today for instance, after chapters featuring Puck and others featuring Night Song my student’s didn’t want to stop until we found out how Sabine and Ranger were fairing.
Those of you on the fence about this book need only to open it back up and read aloud the chapter detailing child-Gar Face’s first deer hunt and I’m sure you will understand why any group of kids would fall in love with this tale.
Sorry for the length — just too damn passionate about this book.
As much as I like Kathi Appelt as a person (and fellow Texan), I just didn’t care for this book. I read the glowing early reviews for it and immediately purchased it. Sadly, it was all I could do to finish the thing. It repeated lines ad nauseum and just kept saying the same thing over and over again. Maybe it would have been better if she’d broken the two story lines up into separate and smaller chapter books. The book is sitting on my “recommended reads” shelf and these middle schoolers just walk on by without a first glance, much less a second one.
Not having pored over the books multiple times and with the care and attention that the Newbery committee will this weekend, I don’t feel able to predict what *will* win. It was a fabulous year for books, and so there are many books I would be happy to see with that gold label – but I admit to a special fondness for Horvath’s My One Hundred Adventures.
I predict that “Chains” by Laurie Halse Anderson will be the winner. My secret crush is on “Waiting for Normal” by Leslie Connor. I also loved “My One Hundred Adventures” and was thinking it was a shoo-in for at least a Newbery Honor until the less than satisfying ending. “The Hunger Games” was a thrilling read, but I think it’s better suited for a Printz award.
Hi, I’ve never posted here before, but Nina and Sharon, I absolutely enjoy your blog, and I absolutely had to answer this question! The MockNewbery sounded so fun, I wish I was there. And to think that the real deal is just around the corner! I just can’t wait.
Who do I think “will” win? I’m not sure that anyone can fully predict that! That is sort of part of the beauty of the Newbery award…you never quite know who is going to win.
If you asked me what I thought “should” win, I would say that if I was a comittee member, I would vote for “The Underneath”. It is not a book that you can absolutely love, it is not a book that I will ever shove at anyone begging them to read. However, if you just look purely at the writing, I belive that nobody can or has touched it. What Kathi Appelt has accomplished in this book is, in my opinion, extrordinary and amazing. The way her words flow and are measured, the way all the stories reflect and spellbind, the intricate and delicate depth of charachter, admiration for setting…well, let me just say I have never quite read anything like it. It is amazing and extraordinary. Even if it is not “destined to be popular”, it is defintiely a “distinguied contribution to literature”, and I believe it could stand up, like no other, as the 2009 Newbery Medal recipient.
I would also seriously consider “Chains” for my vote. Although perhaps not as purely original, it does offer an original viewpoint. I found the story to be unpredictably compelling, one of those “I just *can’t* put it down…I just *have* to know what happens” type of books. The writing is very well done, though in a quieter way; the beauty lies in the careful choice of words and the meaning beneath thier deceptive simplicity. The tension of the
setting was well deployed. I personally found the charchter quite believable…I think the book’s major flaw was that, for me at least, the spellbinding tale was broken and wandered in the middle third, and the book, for a while, became slow and tiresome before picking itself up and becoming just as good as it had been before. It would have been much more brilliant and flawless as a 200-250 page book, instead of 300, or the middle could have been used more wisely. Still that is just me, I still think it stands up as “distinguished”.
I also really, really liked “Trouble”, and thought it was very distinguished (this author just doesn’t let up, does he?…One great book after another. Gary, please stop, you’re making everybody else look bad!) but I’ve heard it listed as too “old” or “teen” and I think that I might see why, although I still think it might definitely appeal to someone twelve to fourteen. If not I’m hoping for a Printz. Just please give it something!
If you would like to know what I would “like” to win, what I would jump twenty feet out of my chair and do a little jig for, I would say “Masterpiece” by Elise Broach. It was such a wonderful story, the tipe of book that you would go around with telling people “You absolutely *have* to read this. Alas, it just probably isn’t “distinguished” enough a “contribution” to literature, but I’m hoping it will get a Notable mention. It better get a Notable mention!
Well, I was busy this year, so I am still trying to catch up with “contender” titles, but I think I feel safe in my choices here. Sorry for the really long post, or in my case more like an essay, but Sharon, really…How else do you expect any book lover to answer such a simple yet deceptive question! Let me know what you think!
I wandered over to steal your url for my blog post on the prediction, and there you were asking what I thought. What do you know? I hurried and finished my rundown before reading other responses. I loved both Orson’s and Eric’s take on The Underneath. I choose it for our in-school book club to read, never considering that anyone could but love it desperately the way I did, only to find two members had violent loathing for it. They very much echoed Orson’s comments. I choose it anyway. I also want to echo the sentiment, Shannon and Nina, on how completely insightful and instructive this blog has been. Even if it did get me to read The Secret of the Andes, inducing the desire to shoot myself in the head. I have very much enjoyed the deadly precise manner in which you have unfolded the workings of a Newbery committee for us. Just imagine how incredulous I was to find I shouldn’t just pick my favorite books and ignore the ones that weren’t my kind of thing. I did it anyway – but then my opinion is far from inducing the manufacture of shinny stickers. The truncated url for my complete post for this year’s picks is //webservices.davis.k12.ut.us/DSDBlogs/servlet/BlogServlets.Home?BlogId=131659. Here’s hoping this post only flies once.
I wandered over to steal your url for my blog post on the prediction, and there you were asking what I thought. What do you know? I hurried and finished my rundown before reading other responses. I loved both Orson’s and Eric’s take on The Underneath. I choose it for our in-school book club to read, never considering that anyone could but love it desperately the way I did, only to find two members had violent loathing for it. They very much echoed Orson’s comments. I choose it anyway. I also want to echo the sentiment, Shannon and Nina, on how completely insightful and instructive this blog has been. Even if it did get me to read The Secret of the Andes, inducing the desire to shoot myself in the head. I have very much enjoyed the deadly precise manner in which you have unfolded the workings of a Newbery committee for us. Just imagine how incredulous I was to find I shouldn’t just pick my favorite books and ignore the ones that weren’t my kind of thing. I did it anyway – but then my opinion is far from inducing the manufacture of shinny stickers. The truncated url for my complete post for this year’s picks is //webservices.davis.k12.ut.us/DSDBlogs/servlet/BlogServlets.Home?BlogId=131659. Here’s hoping this post only flies once.
%*&@* Why does it do that to me? I look so desprate for attention.
%*&@* Why does it do that to me? I look so desprate for attention.
My money is on either Porcupine Year or Chains for the winner, with honors for The Underneath and Masterpiece.
What was the final word on eligibility for The Graveyard Book? Because that’s the one I want to win. It’s clever in so many different ways, funny in places, touching in others, and the way Gaiman reimagines his source material is inspired. As to what will win…who knows? My bet is on some less-heralded book that will surprise us all, like Higher Power of Lucky or Good Masters Sweet Ladies or Walk Two Moons.
OK. I want to play. I think will win: Porcupine Year. If I was the last word: The Remarkable & Very True Story of Lucy and Snowcap. Good Luck ALL.
Beth–whatever the final word is on The Graveyard Book, we will never know. It’s confidential. I’d be happy to be proven wrong in my assertion that it’s inelgibile, since I think it’s one of the strongest books of the year.
Billy: you must be the Billy who’s been to our discussions, yeah? Thanks for chiming in!
Thanks, Nina. I guess I hadn’t realized the eligibility determination was confidential. I’m sure The Graveyard Book will end up with all kinds of end-of-year honors even if the Newbery isn’t one of them. It’s just…Neil Gaiman brought his characters alive for me, and they happened to be dead! Isn’t that some kind of a miracle? Stay warm in Denver — Beth