Friday Mock-Newbery Exercise: Top settings 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 look at what I call the most underrated criteria: Delineation of Setting.
Setting includes time period, location, any world building and beyond. To me, setting is what really showcases an author’s writing skills and really transports a reader into a story.
Looking at all aspects of setting and how it impacts the more “exciting” parts of a book can be tough. Today we’ll take a look at exemplary setting in 2024 Newbery contenders.
For this exercise, look at a 2023 publication (or more) and think about what books showcase a strong delineation of setting, that really transports you somewhere. Tell us what about that setting is done well and makes it stand out.
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The book that immediately come sot mind is one of the heavy medal favorites: THE LABORS OF HERCULES BEAL by Gary D. Schmidt. There are so many aspects of setting that are crucial to this books characters and theme. The central plotline of Cape Cod and it being home- Hercules’ brother’s complicated relationship with Cape cod, the school and its’ building, the Beals Brother nursery, the hill Hercules climbs every day, the fact that his best friend moves. Everything is described where you can imagine being there and you can see how integral all these places are to the story. Then of course there’s the scene where they paint the tree yellow to change colors. How well Schmidt describes all the onlookers and the beautiful tree.. I used to say characters was the strongest part of this book, but now I changed my mind.
I have a few more settings I’ll try to mention in the comments, but now let me here from you and what settings stick out to you from 2024 Newbery contenders.
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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Eyes & the impossible by Dave Eggars has a great sense of place. The park was an important part of the story. Also location had a big impact on what happened at the end.
Samir the Seller of Dreams had a great delineation of setting. Both in the sense that we immediately feel that we are not in the contemporary world, and also in establishing that the setting of this story is slightly hyperbolic, that we shouldn’t expect a hyper-realistic story.
Agree with all three choices above. I read all of them a while ago, but when I think of them now I can “see” the world of the story pretty clearly…a good sign for setting.
The one that strikes me the most, maybe because I recently finished it (no, actually it’s just a wonderful book) is GATHER. The general world of the woods, the roads, and Ian’s house. But also specific details, like bark (from Chapter 15): “There’s a huge frigging piece of bark just at that moment deciding it can’t hang on anymore to its big dead elm. Must be twelve, fifteen feet long, peeling back off and looping itself away from the trunk. We watch it drop, taking along a dozen rotted branches from a white pine and breaking up and folding on itself as it comes down.” Then he points out how “you don’t really think about this stuff ends up on the forest floor” and how “There’s life going on between the dead bark and dead trunk of the dead tree.” The description is vivid, and you feel like you’re right there with Ian and Gather.
But even better, he moves from what it is, to what it means:
“That’s the kind of thing you tell most people, they couldn’t give a shit. But I could have told that to Gramps, or Ansel, or even Drew, and they would have known what I was getting at. It’s rarer than seeing a shooting star. It’s the difference between knowing about the woods and knowing the woods. That’s what I think.”
Another excellent one for setting: REMEMBER US by Jacqueline Woodson. In a way, Sage’s home and neighborhood are as much a part of her as Ian’s from GATHER…and both contrast significantly with those of richer neighbors:
“The brick houses on Ridgewood Place felt like they came from another time. Each house was just as perfect as the one beside it. The cars parked out in front of the houses were undented and shining. We didn’t understand how the people who lived on Ridgewood Place got such nice houses and fancy cars. But we understood why their brick houses remained standing long after the wooden houses of Palmetto Street had burned to the ground. So we slitted our eyes as we walked past the houses on Ridgewood Place, jealous because the kids who lived inside that brick didn’t have to worry about how quickly flames flew…” (6)
There are a lot of books this year with characters who are sensitive to sensory stimuli, and I think these are good to consider through the Setting lens. When I tried this, a book that rose in my estimation, though perhaps not quite to the level of Newbery advocacy, is THE FIRE, THE WATER, AND MAUDIE MCGINN, where Pla not only needs to effectively convey the sensations of being on the water, but through Maudie’s specific perspective. A different example from this book is how Pla imbues the neatness of Maudie’s mother’s and stepfather’s house with menace.
There wouldn’t be a book without the setting in WHEN SEA BECOMES SKY by Gillian McDunn. I can just picture the little island/inlet the characters travel to and what the sea looks like around them with the statue in the water. They spend a lot of their time there, and I think the details that help you picture the tree they sit in or the water they wade into are really present. Even the big island has small details that showcase where the story takes place.
Three books (other than THE LABORS OF HERCULES BEAL) immediately pop into my head. In SIMON SORT OF SAYS, the setting is the point–they moved to the (fictionally) internet and tv-free town to escape media, and the quirkiness of the town is key to the story and well-described. In DUST, the main character’s family moved to Arizona to alleviate her asthma, so setting was key to the story. When the setting is disrupted by the dust, I felt that was also well-described and immersive. In THE SUN AND THE STAR, again, setting is the point of the story. Nico and Will have to navigate the Underworld to get to Tartarus, and the settings in the journey are described in evocative detail. The settings also often drive the action, and the relationship between the characters, because the settings have major influence on both of them. Nico is intimately connected to the Underworld, which is his home, and Will, as a child of Apollo, is a fish out of water–the setting has a detrimental effect on him. But learning more about the Underworld is learning more about Nico.