For the Record: The Dunderheads

"I have another picture book for your consideration–one with a longer, more independent text…"
That was our first sign: The excerpt

Sign number 2: Jonathan’s analysis. An easy analysis to make, in Jonathan’s case.

Sign number 3: I got on the bandwagon

And sign number 4, …buried in the comments, Jonathan and I note how the discussion went at each of our tables at the Mock Newbery, where it fell off early at his despite enthusiasm, but nearly made the home stretch at mine. 

The Dunderheads is my "Robbed!" title of 2009. The stumbling block for people seems to be: how can it stand up against longer or "weightier" works?

For your consideration:

Frog and Toad at many cookies, one after another.
"You know, Toad," said Frog, with his mouth full,
"I think we should stop eating. We will soon be sick."
"You are right," said Toad. "Let us eat one last cookie, and then we will stop."
Frog and Toad ate one last cookie.
There were many cookies left in the bowl.
"Frog," said Toad," let us eat one very last cookie, and then we will stop."
Frog and Toad ate one very last cookie.

Frog and Toad Together was a 1973 Honor, along with The Witches of Worm and The Upstairs Room in the year that Julie of the Wolves won the Medal.   I chose this excerpt for the way Lobel seems to magically build tension and humor by simply repeating a set of phrases with controlled vocabulary. It’s perfect comic timing, as if from a vaudeville stage, but achieved through words on the page, and is exemplary of his tautly structured rhythm throughout…something unmatched in longer works.

Doctor De Soto, the dentist, did very good work, so he had no end of patients. Those close to his own size–moles, chipmunks, et cetera–sat in the regular dentist’s chair.
Larger animals sat on the floor, while Doctor de Soto stood on a ladder.

While the humor in the situation of the opening scene of Doctor de Soto is heightened by the accompanying illustration, it’s inherent in the text.  The reader doesn’t even need to know at this point that Doctor de Soto is a mouse. When it becomes important, it is mentioned adeptly,
 
Being a mouse, he refused to treat animals dangerous to mice, and it said so on his sign.

The characterization achieved through tone is phenomenally potent for such a short text, and the classic folktale structure is given new life for that already-jaded-still-young audience who will perfectly appreciate the nonchalance with which the De Sotos outfox the fox.  Doctor De Soto was an honor book along with The Blue Sword, Graven Images, Homesick: My Own Story, and Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush, the year that Dicey’s Song won the Newbery. Nice range! Could the selections that year have been influenced by the previous?:

My suitcases began to purr.
"Your luggage is excessive, sir.

My suitcases, my fondest hopes
grew small and pale as envelopes.

It’s very hard to excerpt from A Visit to William Blake’s Inn in a way that conveys the breadth and craft of Nancy Willard’s poetry. There’s energy with delicacy, in perfect proportion to the reader’s need for both adventure and comfort.  The verses feed the imagination in a way that prose can’t, by heightening emotional associations with images and sounds. "Individually distinct" is a phrase that still marks this book among all other Newbery winners, not just the books of its year, which included the honor books Ramona Quimby, Age 8 and Upon the Head of a Goat.  Again, what a range,despite the fact that there’s only two honors!

These books each do something with an intensity unmatched in longer works, making a distinguished delivery to their audiences of well wrought themes in uniquely appealing packages. So does, I think, The Dunderheads.

I don’t say this to dispute this committee’s choices, but to address the issue many of you and our Mock participants had: how do you weigh a short book against a long one? I suggest taking these three "short" Newbery books and reading them with an eye to the criteria…and even in comparison to their podium-mates. And if you’re still not there with me, then try the $1000 question:

You have $1000. 

Do you:

Make a reservation for 10 at Chez Panisse? Or,
Make a reservation for 4 at The French Laundry? Or,
Book a flight and a night’s hotel for 2 in Mexico City, to eat at El Greco taqueria?

Or, if clothes do it better for you than food; do you:

Take it to a blowout sale at the mall and update your entire work wardrobe for a newfound sense of power? Or,
Buy one spectacular head-turning outfit for the Newbery/Caldecott banquet that you’ll only wear once? Or,
Buy yourself an unparalleled cashmere bathrobe?

You get the idea.  Each is equally worth $1000, for different reasons each in different measure, even though they all feed the same yen in the end.  And the Newbery committee, of course, gets to pick more than one. How nice.

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