Distinctive Settings from 2025 Newbery Contenders

When you look at the “literary qualities” listed in the Newbery  Terms and Criteria, “delineation of a setting” can seem like the most straightforward (description of place and time) and the least exciting, compared to characters the jump of the page, twisty-turny plots, or innovative styles. Last year Emily called it “the most underrated criteria,” and I think that’s accurate. Because setting can be really important.

Maybe not as important in graphic novels or picture books, where the illustrations often convey most of the setting and the words do other work. Also not so much in most verse novels, where usually it’s feelings, impressions, and moments that shine through poetic text. But with straightforward fiction, a fully realized setting (or settings) can not only help to bring the world of the novel to life, it can also extend and enhance those other qualities like plot, character, and themes.

My choice for most distinguished setting so far is QUAGMIRE TIARELLO COULDN’T BE BETTER. Quag is a vivid character from the start, and it’s a fast-moving story with many-layered themes…but where Quag is and what’s around him is always important and described with efficient, meaningful prose. First in his neighborhood, with the balcony, the memorial, and the YMCA building. Then later with the places he travels to.  When they stop on the freeway before his mom drives off, we see the scene through Quag’s eyes:

“They’re stopped now. On the side of this road in this place where everything is flat. The road is flat. The sky is flat gray. The lines painted down the middle of the road lie flat. Like some construction guy walked along with limp, yellow rectangles hanging over his arm and slapped them down on the flat pavement all day long as he trudged west toward an end of the road that might not even exist. The only thing in the whole, stupid world that’s 3D is Rosie [the car], stopped on the side of the road. Blessedly, finally, still.” (105-106)

It’s a vivid description and you can picture the place…but it also conveys Quagmire’s bafflement and his tiredness with having to respond to whatever mess his mother gets them into.

Later, he gets to Uncle Jay’s farm and the descriptions of specific places: the kitchen, the barn, Charney’s…are all connected to Quag’s thoughts and emotions that relate to them. In one especially intense moment, he’s angry that he might have to stay, and Quag’s mixed-up emotions are tied to the physical spaces:

“…but Quag doesn’t want to hear it. He shrugs out of Jay’s arms and runs. Runs across the flat crunch of the yard grass, across the lane. Runs until he pushes through the door of the barn. Into the warm, hay-scented barn with dust floating lazily through the air, the sweet smell of calf feed floating past, the sour of  cow piss, the fragrant dustiness of Claire [horse] and her baby, the rasp of Helga’s [cow] tongue as she slowly, endlessly carves out the center of her salt block. Beyond the walls, Quag can feel the grass and the gold eyes of the sandhill crane and the rain when it sweeps down like a silver curtain.
But it isn’t what he wants.” (191-192)

I also liked the way the “Audio File” interludes captured moments, showing how sounds can also be connected to places: 

• “The annoying scraping sound a cardboard Foley box makes when you drag it down the hall.” (65)
• “The sound of the lake rolling the pebbles along the shore.” (75)
• “The clinking of silverware, cowbells over a door.” (103)

Maybe it’s because I just finished this book that I’m so impressed with the delineation of setting, but I do think it’s exceptional (also in other areas, which is why it’s now one of my nominations). Here are a few more of this year’s contenders  where the setting stood out for me:

• THE HOTEL BALZAAR: Marta’s attic room, the lobby with the painting and the clock, Room 314 where she hears the stories…Illustrations depict parts of these, but the language really brings them to life.
• THE BLETCHLEY RIDDLE: The mysterious compound at Bletchley Park, alternating with forays into wartime London…
• THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF BIRDS: Camp Bee-Holler where Nina spends the summer, but especially the whooping cranes’ spot in the marsh.

I’m sure there are more examples and would love to hear from others. Which books reach the level of excellence in their delineation of setting?

Filed under: Book Discussion