Friday Mock-Newbery Exercise: Favorite characters of 2023




For today’s Friday Exercise, we’ll focus on one piece of the Newbery Terms and Criteria: These list six literary qualities that the Committee needs to consider as they try to identify “‘distinguished writing’ in a book for children.” Today, we’re all about Delineation of Characters. Characters we connect with can be one of the first and clearest signs that a book is right for us. For me, qualities like plot, setting, and theme, require some thinking about, but with characters, I know right away whether they ring true and capture my interest. Figuring out why they do, and how that affects the book’s overall excellence, is not that simple. So let’s try it with the 2023 Newbery contenders. For this exercise:
- Name a standout character from one of this year’s Newbery eligible books. You can interpret “standout” however you want.
– It could be your favorite character, the one you most enjoyed reading about.
– You might take a child reader’s perspective and select a character that will be especially memorable to kids.
– You could also take a more critical viewpoint and choose the one that you feel is an exceptionally skillful creation by the author.
Or maybe there’s one that’s fits all of these…
- Tell us why you chose this character. What made this a character you respond to so strongly?
Start with one character, but feel free to answer more than once. I say this because before I settled on my top choice, a rush of excellent characters filled my list of possibilities:
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
NOT AN EASY WIN: I read this quite a while ago, but still remember how invested I was in Lawrence’s persistent (though sometimes reluctant) efforts to fight past the hardships of his situation.
GOOD DIFFERENT: What an interesting approach, to have Selah describe how different she is from her peers, while we realize (and she later learns) that she may be on the Autism spectrum.
A WORK IN PROGRESS: Jared’s struggles with food and body-image are hard to read about (and see, in the illustrations), but he’s a completely memorable character.
BUFFALO FLATS: It’s a third person narrative, but we experience Rebecca’s world and her outlook so vividly through her point of view.
THE MANY ASSASSINATIONS OF SAMIR: I need to re-read this one. Monkey’s fascinating as a character and as a slightly unreliable narrator.
THE WILD ROBOT PROTECTS: Roz is a robot, but somehow she shows true character development and something like emotions.
Then there’s HERCULES BEALE and SIMON and Mila/Nadiya from THE LOST YEAR…In the end, though, I went with the dog:
Johannes from THE EYES AND THE IMPOSSIBLE by David Eggers
I really enjoyed his self-image, which is funny and kind of wonderful at the same time. He sees himself as such an amazing and unique creature…which he is in some ways. We also see his naive side, where he really doesn’t know a lot about some things (and doesn’t know that he’s wrong). This happens a lot with numbers:
This park is enormous. I am not a math expert but I believe it is ten thousand miles along its length and about three thousand along its width. (14)
As we get to know Johannes and as he has new, unexpected experiences, we learn that he really is brave and also kind and generous. His wonder at the world, including art, is especially endearing. He has a sincere sense of awe when he learns new things, but also quickly adjusts to the new and responds practically.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
A lot of this is conveyed through Johannes’ distinct narrative voice. The way he looks at the world and those around him comes through in his descriptions to the reader. When he’s freed from captivity by the squirrels, for example, his narration conveys his emotions in a voice that’s poetic…but it’s also just Johannes talking the way he talks:
“Maybe you need to run,” Freya said.
Oh, Freya knows me!
She was so right.
I needed to run, so I said goodnight to the Bison and slipped through the hole in the fence and ran out into the park, luxuriating in my newfound freedom.
It was so good to run again. Oh-oh-oh! I had no idea how deeply the day of being leashed had affected me. I ran and ran but kept feeling a tightening around my neck. I feared that at any moment the leash would tighten and I would be yanked back to that life. Oh! You cannot imagine!
So I ran harder.
I smelled the night, I heard the trees, I named every gust of wind as I sped faster, hurtling through the park with joyous fury. Every breath I took was left miles behind me, hours behind me, oh I had never run so fast and so long! I ran through the night, circling the park, circling the park, never tiring. (66)
And I really like the ending of this one. When a character is well-developed, we get to the point where we can judge whether an action they take is believable or not, and Johannes’ big decision at the end is exactly right. When he says “You knew this,” he’s directly stating that we, his listeners, know him well enough to agree with his final action:
…And for a moment I wanted to leap. To jump and swim home.
But I couldn’t. I knew this. You knew this.
What kind of coyote-dog would I be if I were not out in the world running? What kind of Eyes would I be if I were not out in the world seeing?
Heroes go forth.
To be alive is to go forth.
So we went forth. (249)
Yes, I really liked Johannes. We’d love to hear the character(s) that have stuck with you in your reading so far. Let us know in the comments below:
Filed under: Book Discussion

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.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
SLJ Blog Network
How to Do Just About Everything in 2025
Good Golden Sun: A Conversation with Brendan Wenzel
MegaGhost Vol. 1 | Review
When Book Bans are a Form of Discrimination, What is the Path to Justice?
The Necessity for Marginalized Stories Today and Always, a guest post by Wahab Algarmi
ADVERTISEMENT
I am not 100% sold on BUFFALO FLATS, but I think that doubt might have more to do with development of plot. As far as character is concerned, one might be tempted to say that as strong a character as Rebecca seems, that might be on account of her being a standard protagonist with standard protagonist characteristics: independent, smart, ambitious, just, a character who both rises above and strengthens her community. This has been a winning main character formula for decades, centuries even. But there is one thing that, for me, changed the whole delineation of her character. That is the author’s bold decision to start the book with Rebecca meeting God. It’s an odd inclusion, and I think the author could have left it out without having to change much of the rest of the book. I made a similar comment about SIMON SORT OF SAYS. The school shooting is both central but arguably actually unnecessary to the book. Perhaps Rebecca’s encounter with God is too. In SIMON, I found this a negative. In BUFFALO FLATS, I thought it really worked, letting us see in a different light what might otherwise have been a typical protagonist. To me the episode helps tie together Rebecca’s characterization with delineation of setting and interpretation of theme – almost as if she and the land were one. Without that opening, would BUFFALO FLATS and Rebecca be distinguishable from other books and their protagonists like Hattie Big Sky or Prairie Lotus? I think EYES AND THE IMPOSSIBLE and LABORS OF HERCULES BEALE try to do similar things with character and setting. Johannes’ conception of the Sun is in the same ballpark maybe, but less effective for reasons I won’t give now since I am running long already. I think HERCULES BEALE may well be a better book than BUFFALO FLATS, but again not in this particular respect – the Greek mythology is treated as analogy, and while Herc’s morning sojourns to meet the sun and greet his dead parents also has BUFFALO-like resonances, there was just something about Rebecca’s direct encounter, matter-of-fact for her, so unexpected to the reader, and Leavitt’s just going all the way there, that just seemed to contribute the most to characterization.
I agree with Leonard that Rebecca is a “standard protagonist” in many ways, and that helps me recognize why I see her as such a strong, and even distinctive character. Her situation, her goals, and even the characters around her (two suitors, one rival, etc.) are things we see pretty regularly, especially in pioneer-ish stories. But within those trappings, I thought her voice and the way she sees things really stand out.
The “Dominion Day” chapter (57-75), is a good example. The interpersonal dynamics of a box lunch social (or something similar) have been explored before in other books, I’m sure. And it’s not like anything that unusual happens at the one Rebecca attends. But she still resonates as a compelling character as the event unfolds. There’s one paragraph where she observes everyone and speculates about them to herself shows her wit and insights (and also her blindspots…not realizing that Zach and Florence are seriously courting). Later, after absorbing the sly insults that Radonna threw at her, she moves the casual conversation into her imaginative musings about grass and mountains that catch the others off-guard. She captures Levi’s curiosity in a way that her rival can’t…but we also see how Levi really doesn’t share Rebecca’s views. The chapter ends with Rebecca reflecting on her shortcomings, but also very practically putting her bonnet money away
Rebecca put her money box on the shelf. It would take a miracle for her to be a ten-stitch-per-inch girl, or to be as good as LaRue and Mother, and perhaps those were the miracles he should be praying for. But the miracle she really wanted was her land. (75)
So she’s a standard character, but also a distinct and fascinating character because of the specific ways she surprises and enlightens us from within the limited range of options that are attached to that standard.
I’d say that characters like Jarett in A WORK IN PROGRESS, Johannes (THE EYES AND THE IMPOSSIBLE), and Roz (THE WILD ROBOT PROTECTS) are more unique characters. But in some ways it’s the conventionality of the type of character she is that makes Rebecca stand out…because she’s so much more than that type. That’s true for me even without the conversation with God, but I agree with Leonard that that’s another strength of the novel, and a surprising, but fascinating element to include…and especially bold to make it the opening passage.
There is another kind of standard protagonist, perhaps more common these days than before, but with a lineage of their own (e.g., Meg from A Wrinkle in Time.) Examples this year include Selah from GOOD DIFFERENT, Anna from WHAT HAPPENED TO RACHEL RILEY, and Drew from DREW LECLAIR CRUSHES THE CASE: socially misfit, “weird” (or more accurately, made-to-feel-weird) girls with specific interests (often it’s reading, sadly). I’ll talk about these three, but others among Suggested books are Poppy from THE LION OF LARK-HAYES MANOR and Maudie from THE FIRE, THE WATER, and MAUDIE MCGINN. The books may or may not explicitly say the characters are neurodivergent or on the autism spectrum. (Also, it feels like all such characters have the same mother, one who the protagonist feels wants them to be other than themselves.)
Unsurprisingly, given that I’ve praised it before, I think DREW does the best job. I felt like Selah’s neurodivergence was the book, that it was an issue book where the character was the issue, and for that reason, even though the book was all about her and the first-person verse suggests we get to know her intimately, the character still felt a little broad in the way people sometimes complain about with issue books. WHAT HAPPENED TO RACHEL RILEY is also an issue book, though the issue is not related to Anna’s characterization, which I thought thus suffered a bit from passivity–Anna’s largely there to figure out what happened, while Rachel is the true heroic character (towards the end, Anna actually calls her an “antihero” (304)). It’s almost the opposite problem as GOOD DIFFERENT, which was so much about Selah, it didn’t really let her live. RACHEL wasn’t much about Anna at all, and perhaps it felt like her qualities were mostly given to prevent her from being a total blank. DREW strikes the best balance for me. The mystery doesn’t upstage the character, but it gives her something to engage in, rather than fix her under a microscope, and we get to know her better that way. (And in the end, it helps DREW just be more fun than the others.)
I guess in this comment and my previous, I haven’t really made a case that the delineation of these archetypal characters are different and better than other examples–it’s more like how does characterization interact and balance with the other Criteria, which I suppose arguably isn’t a Criterion itself. But I have found it very common this year for me to be reading and think, OK we’re dealing with such-and-such familiar kind of character and then thinking more about how that works in the book at hand.
Love that analysis of RACHEL RILEY and GOOD DIFFERENT, Leonard. I hadn’t thought about how those two protagonists play such different roles within their stories, but yes: one too much an observer, the other too much…the whole book.
I also like: “how does characterization interact and balance with the other Criteria?” That’s an excellent way to look at things. It’s tempting to just walk through those literary qualities one by one and try to isolate how successful each one is. But really, it’s how they all work together that makes a book distinctive. Tying characterization to “interpretation of the theme,” is pretty natural, but I also think it can be really useful to look at characterization aids (or hinders) the “development of a plot.”
In RACHEL RILEY, it does sort of seem like Anna needed to be a smaller personality in order to play her role in the plot, and maybe that didn’t fully succeed.
In EB AND FLOW, the strong and distinct personalities of the two narrators are almost inseparable from the plot…it’s those distinct characters that really made everything happen. If we don’t get to know those two and they don’t ring true, the conflict and the themes fall apart. That could also be true of THE SONG OF US.
IT HAPPENED ON A SATURDAY is another example where character and plot are so intertwined. Julia is going to make some really poor and dangerous choices, so the author has to make sure we get to know her and understand her enough that we care about her and empathize, even when we realize she’s making an awful mistake. I think she succeeds in that area.
I also think WHAT HAPPENED TO RACHEL RILEY didn’t quite hit the mark on delineation of character. My kid called Anna an NPC (video game term for a non-player character who is controlled by the software and often has only a small circumscribed domain or set of abilities/interactions). It was hard to believe that Anna didn’t have many interests beyond investigating the Rachel Riley story, particularly since that investigation was causing her to be ostracized. There was one scene that hit the mark for me, though, when Anna and her mom were having a conversation and Anna was defending her more quiet, but determined personality.
In contrast, Mathew in THE LOST YEAR is also investigating the story of what happened to someone else, but he seemed more fully realized even though his world was quite small due to COVID.
FAVORTIE CHARACTER: Lieutenant Colonel Hupfer (LABORS OF HERCULES BEAL.) A retired Marine, Hupfer is the strict and disciplined teacher that sets protagonist Hercules Beal on his own heros journey. This character creates tension and humor and one of my favorite parts of the book are his Hupfer’s direct but funny student evaluations that also teach vocabulary and grammar. We all need teachers like Lt. Colonel Hupfer that encourage a positive growth mindset and accountability while providing opportunities to succeed in life. He’s not the main character, but his supporting role is essential.
CRITICAL VIEW: Johannes from THE EYES AND THE IMPOSSIBLE. I thought this book was exceptional. The unique character was naive and curious, like a kid. Experiences changed his world-view and as he learns more about himself, he finds courage in his convictions. That makes him a humble and kind leader, even as he says goodbye to one world to explore another.
CHILD READER: Merwin and Louise from BIG TREE. The journey of the sibling seeds is inspiring. The environmental story is timely and hopeful. While the seeds are depicted with human qualities through their dialogue, Selznick’s illustrations sequences remain true to nature. This interwoven brings to life characters that are relatable and full of hope.
I like that Col Hupfer pick by Quade. Secondary characters can have such an impact on a novel. That made me browse through my notes to pick some other exceptional supporting characters. I think my choice would be Pedro’s abuelito in MEXIKID is one…and maybe his Apa too. Does anyone have any other Best-Supporting-Character thoughts?
I haven’t said anything about STATELESS, even though I nominated it, but I’d say its secondary characters is one of its biggest strengths. It’s the usual praise: Wein has to manage a large cast of characters, but everyone is distinct and multi-dimensional. Again I invoke HERCULES to say that, as strong as that book is overall, and that book does have a lot of vivid secondary characters (being as community-minded as it is), this is something I think Wein did better. This is particularly important because it kept me on my toes trying to figure out who among all these believable, sympathetic, but flawed characters is a murderer (or maybe it was obvious to others, and I was just dense). I also appreciated how different facets of even relatively minor characters come to play as they go to the different cities. And similar to how Steven described EB & FLOW, the personalities, and not necessarily just the obvious ones, definitely make the plot, which is twisty and thrilling, possible.
I am going to shout out THE SKULL for delineation of characters. In a book that only has three character’s it’s interesting to see how they all develop. We see Otilla really conquering her fears by running through the woods and standing up for the Skull. You see the skull showing his fears by confiding in Otilla and watching them grow in friendship and trust one another is a key element of the book of the whole. I wish (considering there are only three characters) that we learned more about the skeleton and his motives etc. etc.
Love this pick of THE SKULL for characters. As Emily notes, the Otilla/Skull friendship is so key. And to make it so convincing, without spelling it out or using a lot of words, is really skillful. I’m okay with what we don’t know about the skeleton. I look at Otilla and Skull as the real characters, and the skeleton kind of aligned with whoever or whatever caused Otilla to run away: specifics are vague, but both are threatening, and harmful, and you need to run away or destroy them.