Mock Newbery Favorites So Far: Take our “Beginning of the Year Check-In” Survey and join the discussion of current front-runners
As co-bloggers, Emily and I have never met, but we email regularly, talk on the phone now and then, and sometimes write posts together on a shared file. To start off our Heavy Medal Mock Newbery season, we wrote back and forth about the books we’ve read and the books we’re looking forward to reading. Please join us with your own thoughts in the comment section below, and also be sure to take our Beginning of the Year Check-In survey as well, where you can vote for your own early favorites by genre…the link is at the bottom of this post.
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STEVEN: Now that we have a sizable list (85 titles!) of suggestions from Heavy Medal readers, it’s time to start identifying front-runners. Emily, I know you’ve read a ton of the suggested books already. Any favorites?
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EMILY: I’ve definitely been enjoying everybody’s suggestions, but I will say there’s nothing I’m really advocating for or am convinced is a winner. AFRICAN TOWN by Irene Latham & Charles Waters is the book that’s stuck with me the most this year… but we’ll see what happens, the year is young.
STEVEN: I’m in that same place. Lot of books I’ve liked a lot this year, including some excellent fantasies and realistic fiction, but nothing stands above the rest so far. If I have to pick an early favorite it will be Pamela S. Turner’s HOW TO BUILD A HUMAN, an informative (and also funny) book about evolution.
EMILY: Steven, anything you’re looking forward to that is yet to be published?
STEVEN: Gail Carson Levine’s SPARROWS IN THE WIND (Oct 25 pub date) is one. I don’t always love Greek myth retellings, but we had a really good one last year (AMBER AND CLAY) and I’m curious to see what she does with the Trojan War. UNDERGROUND FIRE by Sally M. Walker (Oct 11) is the non-fiction one I’m especially eager for; not a happy story I know, but I bet she tells it in a fascinating way. I’d love to hear what fall titles Heavy Medal readers are hearing about. What’s on your coming-soon list, Emily?
EMILY: For coming soon, I’m all about the retellings! That’s my favorite sub genre! On a picture book standpoint GOLD by David Shannon, actually came out last week: King Midas by David Shannon? Cool! Also THE THREE BILLY GOATS GRUFF by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen (Oct 18). Then, the retelling of The Secret Garden… WITH ROBOTS?! I’m intrigued: that’s MOONGARDEN (Plotting the Stars, Vol. 1) by Michelle Barry (Nov 1).
STEVEN: Jon Scieszka’s THE REAL DADA MOTHER GOOSE (Oct 11) might be a good fit for your retellings list too.
EMILY: Definitely not on the retellings, Alan Gratz has a new one, TWO DEGREES (Oct 4), which looks promising? Oh my goodness I thought I was caught up with my reading…
STEVEN: Have you noticed any other particular trends from this year’s books? Last year it was ghosts in fiction, but that seems to have died and without coming back this year. How about pandemic fiction? It plays a big role in some 2022 titles (AIN’T BURNED ALL THE BRIGHT, NEW FROM HERE…) but also kind of looms in others: in an earlier comment, Leonard Kim noted that THE OGRESS AND THE ORPHANS and OSMO UNKNOWN can be seen as “fantasy born of pandemic-fueled feelings.”
EMILY: Interesting thoughts… definitely seeing the pandemic trend; there’s also one more, which I’m forgetting the name with the teenagers at the juvenile detention center…AT THE END OF EVERYTHING. Yep, that’s totally our trend. We’d love to hear everyone else’s thoughts in the comment and in our Beginning of Year Check-In Survey which will help us see what titles to highlight as we begin book discussions. Please fill out the survey by Thursday (we’ll share results Friday) and get ready for our first discussion post on Wednesday! #letsdothis
Filed under: Book Discussion, Suggestions
About Steven Engelfried
Steven Engelfried retired from full-time library work a couple years ago and now works as a part-time Youth Librarian at the West Linn Public Library in Oregon. He served on the 2010 Newbery committee, chaired the 2013 Newbery Committee, and also served on the 2002 Caldecott committee. You can reach him at sengelfried@yahoo.com.
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Own Monday, own getting started! Here’s the link to the survey if its lost in the text! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeWfMKRisB9y8BRcSt2NA_38k875DP5cI39HqMtuaGX4ZJWJg/viewform?usp=sf_link
Two books I am looking forward to both appear tomorrow!
VIOLET AND JOBIE IN THE WILD by Perkins – The description on Amazon says “for fans of Skunk and Badger”, and though I have doubts any book can replicate that experience, Perkins is a good (and Newbery-winning) writer.
WINDSWEPT by Preus – Another fantasy! Could we finally be having a year rich in excellent fantasy?
Also, I can’t ever remember not finishing a book after starting. I did not finish AFRICAN TOWN. And I was looking forward to it! (I loved Waters’ and Latham’s Can I Touch Your Hair?)
I’m looking forward to WINDSWEPT too, Leonard. Her WEST OF THE MOON was one of my favorites. And Lynne Rae Perkins is always up to interesting things…
I’m so impressed that you can finish every book that you start, Leonard! I stop midway many times over the course of a year’s reading, and admit to even taking some pleasure in that moment when I decide: I’m just going to stop right here. I was really happy when I decided to leave Osmo Unknown in the middle of his adventures (although I’ll be willing to resume if it gets enough support from others…maybe). Also, unrelated to children’s books, but I stopped watching House of the Dragon after three episodes and feel very good about that decision.
I’m also a frequent book abandoner. I have to admit I did not get very far into ANYBODY HERE SEEN FRENCHIE? and I am kind of dreading going back to it, but I think I’ll have to because it’s gotten so much support!
Well now, I am always abandoning TV series. I think it’s been years since I’ve finished one. I don’t know what it is about books that make me feel guilty about not finishing. Sorry to hear OSMO didn’t engage you.
I don’t know what it was about AFRICAN TOWN that broke the camel’s back for me. I had high hopes for it, then was having trouble getting into its verse, and then it just felt like so many pages left. Suddenly I realized, I don’t have to read this!
Steven and Emily (and other former Newbery committee members) – to the extent you are allowed (maybe you are not), can you say something about the reading experience when you served? The importance of re-reading is often touted here – but what fraction of Suggested or Nominated books would you say you re-read? Were there Suggested books you did-not-finish?
I remember six years ago having a strongly negative reaction to Samurai Rising. It was a book I’d rather not have read much less re-read. But I felt I had to re-read it to stake my position well, but I did so grudgingly, commenting, “OK fine, I’m back from the library, with a copy of SAMURAI RISING. . . Can’t believe I’m interrupting Five Children on the Western Front for this,” to which Jonathan Hunt replied, “Oh, I don’t want you to reread it necessarily. I don’t think doing so will change your mind. Opinions converge and diverge frequently at the Newbery table. One minute you’re sitting next to an idiot; the next minute she’s a genius.”
Wow, that makes me miss Jonathan Hunt’s voice on this blog! So funny and true.
When I was on the committee, I re-read all of the nominated books (sometimes in their entirety, sometimes just portions) because I wanted to have detailed notes about each book so I felt prepared for discussion.
At the same time, detailed notes can only take you so far. Sometimes you can’t really pinpoint why a book fails to engage you as a reader. This is sort of how I felt about EVERYTHING SAD IS UNTRUE (not my committee year). If I had been on the real committee that year, that would have been a tough one for me to re-read because I so thoroughly disliked it, but I imagine I would have made myself do it.
Not to get too philosophical, but you never step in the same river twice. Re-reading even just a few months later can be a different experience. This *almost* makes me want to try to read EVERYTHING SAD again, lol.
I’m pretty sure I re-read almost all of the Nominated books. I don’t think I re-read any of the Suggestions unless I was considering nominating them myself. But for me, “re-reading” took different forms. With a book that I had read for the first time recently, I wouldn’t necessarily read every word. I might do a bit of skimming, with special attention to the portions that seemed most notable.
In my first year, I remember choosing not to re-read one of the Nominated books because I believed it was well short of distinguished and assumed it wouldn’t go far in the discussion. When it came up for discussion, however, it got some strong support from more than one person. I sat there silent, wanting very much to be able to point out all of the areas where that book fell short, but it just wasn’t fresh enough in my mind for me to be able to get to specifics. That book didn’t go farther, but the next time I was on the Committee I made sure to re-read so I would be ready, not just to advocate for the best books, but to express concerns about the ones that I felt were least worthy…
Yes, it’s hard but I’ve “hate-read” some stuff so that I can make cogent dissenting arguments!
Thanks for introducing me to the term “hate-read,” Susan N. It’s perfect…
I am excited to read Black BIrd, Blue Road, by Sofiya Pasternack. The premise and setting sounds very intriguing.
I have felt that so much of this year’s titles are a bit too didactic in places. It’s a bit hard for me to explain why I feel this way. I enjoyed Dan Gemeinhart’s The Midnight Children very much as it was just plain fun. I did have to suspend my disbelief at times, and the villain was too easily thwarted, but the story made me laugh.
I feel a bit odd as so many have loved THe Ogress and the Orphans, by Kelly Barnhill. I definitely enjoyed the book but didn’t find it to be as engaging as I had hoped. Also, I found the villain to be so obvious and and almost laughable. Perhaps the author meant to portray him that way, (allusion to a certain someone), and perhaps that makes him more frightening. HOwever, I thought the townspeople were very stupid to be so enamored of him. I did love the ogress, though.
Like Mr. Kim, I do not like to start a book and not finish it. Don’t know why I’m that way, either. I have no qualms about television shows, though.
I do feel that people are not giving Eagar’s THe Patron Thief of Bread the recognition it deserves. Setting, characterization and plot are standouts, and the protagonist undergoes some major growth throughout the novel. It’s been my favorite read so far in 2022.
Fwiw, I am choosing not to read the Ogress and the Orphans, as I did NOT like The Girl Who Drank the Moon– and always felt like I was the only one.
OGRESS looks like it might be one of the more interesting discussions this year. Lots of support (see today’s Poll Results). But some fairly strong feelings against it too. I’ve heard “obvious” and “predictable” and “heavy handed.” The challenge for me is figuring out if those are responses that children will have; or has the author spelled things out at just the right level for young readers, even if they’re too blatant for adult readers like us….
Yes, the words ‘obvious, heavy-handed and predictable’ came to mind while I was reading GIRL… also ‘Interminable and Repetitive’. A combo of Heavy Medal crew raves and NBA long-listing may sway me to read OGRESS.
That’s a great question, Steven about whether things are spelled out at the right level for young readers. But there are so many books that don’t feel spelled out, have a wonderful flow and feel like their authors trust kids to use their noggins like When You Reach Me or the Chronicles of Chrestomanci or Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.