Results for the San Diego Mock Newbery
I’m sorry for posting these results late, but here they are.
We had seven participants, but only five voters so we had a much smaller group than Nina.
We decided on co-winners and one honor book!
Newbery Medal
THE FAMILY ROMANOV and WEST OF THE MOON
Newbery Honor
BROWN GIRL DREAMING
On our second ballot, here’s where things stood.
BROWN GIRL DREAMING = (1) 1st + (2) 2nd + (1) 3rd = 12 points
THE FAMILY ROMANOV = (2) 1st + (2) 2nd = 14 points
THE PORT CHICAGO 50 = (2) 3rd = 4 points
WEST OF THE MOON = (1) 1st + 2 (2nd) = (2) 3rd =15 points
We were deadlocked after two rounds. Our lone 1st place vote on BROWN GIRL DREAMING admitted that if we forced her off on a third ballot she would have voted for THE FAMILY ROMANOV, but we also noted that WEST OF THE MOON was on everybody’s ballot, too. So we wimped out and made everybody happy. BROWN GIRL DREAMING pulled ahead of THE PORT CHICAGO 50 for our lone Honor book. REVOLUTION did get a first place vote on the first ballot, but no additional votes.
My first round ballot was 1) THE FAMILY ROMANOV, 2) BROWN GIRL DREAMING, and 3) THE PORT CHICAGO 50. Then I switched PORT CHICAGO out for WEST OF THE MOON on the second ballot so that it would have the whole committee behind it. I’m a little foggy about the particulars of the discussion, but there were a couple points of fact that were questioned, one was in the family tree and another was in the main narrative. My copy’s at work and I’d like to look at these more closely before I say anything further. But I welcome comments from those who attended.
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About Jonathan Hunt
Jonathan Hunt is the Coordinator of Library Media Services at the San Diego County Office of Education. He served on the 2006 Newbery committee, and has also judged the Caldecott Medal, the Printz Award, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. You can reach him at hunt_yellow@yahoo.com
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What book had factual things questioned? (family tree, main narrative; see the end of your post)
Sam, in our discussion of THE FAMILY ROMANOV a couple of people thought they had located factual errors.
One person thought the birth year for Nicholas II is incorrect as it is listed on the family tree in the beginning. She ascertained this because it didn’t sit well with a sentence in the main narrative, and upon investigation found the main narrative to be correct and the tree faulty. She did not put forward the sentence from the main narrative. When I got home, I double-checked the birth year against Wikipedia (the source of all truth) and it appears to be correct. So now I’d have to look at the book more carefully. I’m sorry this is so vague, but it’s a second-hand concern.
Another person found a sentence that described an army going east from Siberia to Moscow. But as the crow flies, according to the map, that direction should be southwest. Again, I don’t have a specific reference for you. (We were kind of laid back, and didn’t press for the specific page.) I left my book at the office, so I won’t be able to give it a second look until I get back. Again, I have neither the sentence nor the context of the alleged offense.
Obviously, the book had strong support despite the fact that this could be problematic. I think most people saw these as peccadilloes (assuming they indeed had merit) rather than fatal flaws.
Cool, thanks for elaborating!
Just curious here, do these minor errors hurt a book more as a newbery contender or a sibert contender?
Eric, I think it depends on the field for each. I’d hazard to say equally for both…if the point of a book is to tell a factual story, then factual errors are equally damning for either award. However, books with minor/correctable errors have been awarded.
I’m just wondering–could the Russian calendar be different from the one used in the West? I wrote a historical novel once and found that the 17th century Venetian calendar was different, with the year beginning in the spring. The date might be correct after all.
We discussed this possibility, but rejected it as the different calendar put the dates off months rather than years.
Months makes sense. The Julian calendar is I think 10 days behind the Georgian calendar so a months difference can make sense. I thinnk Fleming noted she was using Georgian calendar in the book, so it could still be an error.
Eric, I think both committees have to evaluate the book holistically, weighing the strengths and the weaknesses in the balance. Some people think a factual error or typo automatically disqualifies a nonfiction book, but I think it depends on many other factors.
Nina wrote this above–
if the point of a book is to tell a factual story, then factual errors are equally damning for either award.
I think one of the points of a nonfiction book is to communicate facts, but most nonfiction books have additional points as well. It’s like me saying that the point of a fiction story is to entertain and if I find it boring–boom!–automatic disqualification. I think it’s kind of an oversimplification, don’t you?
I’m back in my office now, and my hardcovers of THE FAMILY ROMANOV are out on loan right now. All I have is the ARC (which is missing the family tree). Nevertheless, I have the inside scoop from Random House: the family tree was created by an outside source, but Fleming and her editors fact-checked it and found it correct, then it went to press and inexplicably came back incorrect. The errors were immediately changed for the second and subsequent printings of the book (which are currently available).
The direction error should have been caught by the copyeditor, but will also be changed in subsequent editions of the book. Having taught map skills to elementary and middle school children, I know that this can be tricky. Siberia is east of Moscow, but you travel west to get there. To me, this is akin to a typo. The kind of thing you can answer correctly on a test when it has your full attention, but which you inadvertently mess up when you’ve got five other things that you’re focusing on in the narrative.
I say this by way of explanation, rather than excuse. The committee has to judge the book in hand, rather than the one that the author intended to write or the one that the publisher intended to publish. Yet this raises an interesting question: If a book has multiple printings in the year of its publication, and there are minor changes made from the first to the second, does one printing take priority? Is it the one the publisher submits? Hmmm.
Since Jennifer Lawson brought up the concern at our mock Newbery, I was hoping that she would chime in here to explain it better than I did, but she did pipe up over on Someday My Printz Will Come so I will refer you to that post and her comments.
http://blogs.slj.com/printzblog/2014/10/22/the-family-romanov-murder-rebellion-and-the-fall-of-imperial-russia/#comment-45092