Don’t forget the little titles! One Suggestion Contenders
As we move into nomination season, it is easy to get excited about the big titles. As always, I’m worried about missing something and even that a suggested title may slip through the cracks. Today we’ll look at one suggestion contenders- of the 85 suggested titles, 42 only have one suggestion. I’ll start with three but feel free to comment on any.
ALICE AUSTEN LIVED HERE by Alex Gino. This is a quality LGBTQ title that can be compared with DIFFERENT KINDS OF FRUIT. I appreciated the development of plot particularly about inter generational relationships and friendships/ mentorships. I did think the ending could have been more fleshed out and like there was no closure from the teacher.
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IN THE BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY by Jane Kuo. This title reminds me of MAIZY CHEN’S LAST CHANCE and NEW FROM HERE by Kelly Yang. It goes with Steven’s theme of leaving one place for another. I thought this title particularly excelled in development of characters both primary and secondary. I also think Kuo did a good job portraying “not the best people” like the dads “best friend” and the troublemaker boys.
GIBBERISH by Young Vo.
This was my suggestion and I’m still thinking about it. It’s a picture book and Vo particularly excels in presentation of information and the display of language and words. AWAY WITH WORDS (another one suggestion title) would be a good one to compare to.
Any thoughts on this title or any other one suggestion titles (listed below)? Let us know in the comments!
| A SONG CALLED HOME | Zarr | 1 |
| AIR | Roe | 1 |
| ALICE AUSTEN LIVED HERE * | Gino | 1 |
| ALL MY RAGE | Tahir | 1 |
| ANSWERS IN THE PAGES * | Levithan | 1 |
| AT THE END OF EVERYTHING | Nijkamp | 1 |
| AUGUSTA SAVAGE * | Nelson | 1 |
| AWAY WITH WORDS | Hoberman | 1 |
| BARE TREE AND LITTLE WIND | Perkins | 1 |
| BEAUTY WOKE | Ramos | 1 |
| BERRY SONG * | Goade | 1 |
| BIG AND SMALL AND IN-BETWEEN | Higgins | 1 |
| BIG RIG * | Hawes | 1 |
| CORNBREAD & POPPY | Cordell | 1 |
| DREW LECLAIR GETS A CLUE | Bury | 1 |
| EACH OF US A UNIVERSE | Ferruolo | 1 |
| ELLEN OUTSIDE THE LINES | Sass | 1 |
| GARDENER OF ALCATRAZ | Smith | 1 |
| GIBBERISH | Vo | 1 |
| GOLDEN GIRL * | Faruqi | 1 |
| HUMMINGBIRD | Lloyd | 1 |
| IN THE BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY | Kuo | 1 |
| INVISIBLE * | Gonzalez | 1 |
| THE LAST BEEKEEPER * | Cartaya | 1 |
| LAWLESS SPACES | Haydu | 1 |
| THE LEGEND OF GRAVITY | Palmer | 1 |
| LITTLE HOUSES * | Henkes | 1 |
| LOYALTY | Avi | 1 |
| THE LUCKY ONES | Jackson | 1 |
| THE MIDNIGHT CHILDREN * | Gemeinhart | 1 |
| MY LIFE BEGINS * | Maclachlan | 1 |
| OSMO UNKNOWN AND THE EIGHTPENNY WOODS | Valente | 1 |
| OUT OF RANGE | Lang | 1 |
| QUEER DUCKS (AND OTHER ANIMALS) * | Schrefer | 1 |
| THE RED PALACE | Hur | 1 |
| RED SCARE | Walsh | 1 |
| THE SECRET BATTLE OF EVAN PAO | Shang | 1 |
| THE SHEEP, THE ROOSTER, AND THE DUCK * | Phelan | 1 |
| SINGING WITH ELEPHANTS | Engle | 1 |
| STAR CHILD | Zoboi | 1 |
| THE STAR THAT ALWAYS STAYS * | Johnson | 1 |
| TINY DINO | Freedman | 1 |
| TO THE FRONT | Friddell | 1 |
| THE UNFORGETTABLE LOGAN FOSTER | Peters | 1 |
| VINYL MOON | Browne | 1 |
| WAYWARD CREATURES | Lorentz | 1 |
Filed under: Book Discussion
About Emily Mroczek-Bayci
Emily Mroczek (Bayci) is a freelance children’s librarian in the Chicago suburbs. She served on the 2019 Newbery committee. You can reach her at emilyrmroczek@gmail.com.
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Seeing all of those one-suggestion titles reminds me of how many I still haven’t read…
I agree with Emily on IN THE BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY. This was a really strong book. One of those stories where you think: coming to the US was such a mistake, this family is getting treated so badly…but over time it does work out, in believable ways. And the verse format worked very well.
I kind of thought THE MIDNIGHT CHILDREN would get more support. I only just got to it and liked most of it. Ravani reminded me of the title character in OSMO UNKNOWN: friendless, bullied, etc…yet somehow he was so much more likable for me. In some ways it was a straightforward story of friends and community, but with this dark side of the slaughterhouse and the Hunter that played off each other well.
I have a weakness for wordplay, so AWAY WITH WORDS is right up my alley. I kind of forgot about it when I put MARSHMALLOW CLOUDS at the top of my poetry list, but will take another look at it soon.
I Suggested OSMO so should say a few words as it hasn’t garnered additional support. I hadn’t thought about Osmo’s unlikeability until Steven mentioned it, but it’s true. Among other things, he’s a know-it-all who is resentful that all he knows doesn’t bring him social favor. Just the opposite and then the resentfulness on top only makes things worse. This is both a familiar type of person and one relatively little-represented among protagonists. A similar main character who springs to mind is Harvey from the Origami Yoda books, for those who know them, and even there he is mostly the foil and villain. And then, Valente gives Osmo two companions who are even more misanthropic and unpleasant than he is, the pangirlin Nevermore and the skadgebat Bonk the Cross. But that’s sort of the point too. At one point in their adventures, Osmo tells Never, “well done”. It’s almost a throwaway compliment, the kind you and I say all the time out of social politeness and that you and I and Osmo won’t remember having given 5 minutes later. But to the genuinely antisocial Never it is hugely significant, “Nobody’s ever said anything so grand to anyone before in the history of the world, I expect” (269). And so one of the more memorable moments in my reading this year, when my heart really went out to a character, was when Never makes an effort and does another good thing, and she thinks, “he was going to say well done to her again, she just knew it” (282). And of course he doesn’t. It doesn’t even occur to him, as it probably wouldn’t to most of us. And I found Never’s later outburst sort of wonderful, “Not one well done, not even one, and I should have gotten two, because I saved your dumb satchel and your dumb you. This is why you should never do anything or know anyone. It feels so amazing when they praise you and so unbearable when they yell at you” (290). So in our “one plus one minus” exercise I would actually put delineation of character as distinguished.
To balance with a minus, like OGRESS I did think the end of OSMO was a little weaker, a bit too talky about the importance of empathy, a Breakfast Clubby lesson that you think you know someone, especially the ones you don’t like, but you don’t. Maybe that is a failing of development of plot. And it is a long episodic fantasy, the kind Steven was willing to not finish, so maybe plot there too.
I am reading WINDSWEPT now and finding some of the same failings people are noting in OGRESS and the less-read OSMO, but to me one difference is that even if Barnhill and Valente didn’t hit home runs in everyone’s eyes, they are swinging for the fences, and that was thrilling to me in both books.