MORE 'BOOK-DISCUSSION' POSTS
As verse novel goes — The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo is near perfection. So many high caliber poems one after another with surprising, haunting, beautiful, raw, and revealing lines. If I were to present it at a Newbery Committee meeting, I would definitely recite some of the following: p. 24 Maybe because I can’t keep the […]
BOB and PENDERWICKS AT LAST share this post because they each require a look at the Newbery Terms and Criteria. These are clear in the way they apply to BOB…and a little trickier with PENDERWICKS. Also, both received two October nominations from Heavy Medal readers. And they both have chickens that must be reckoned with. The Newbery […]
The moment I opened this book and started reading, I knew it would be a book that divides readers’ reactions. The southern dialect spelled as spoken could throw some readers off, even though I appreciate it quite a bit: being able to “hear” Little Charlie’s and other characters’ voices more vividly due to spellings such as “seent,” […]
Up to this point, FRONT DESK by Kelly Yang is getting great support among Heavy Medal participants. During the March – August period when we solicited monthly “suggestions,” it was tied for first with eight. After our first round of “nominations” earlier this month, it’s the leader with ten. I really appreciate the way it […]
Last week, Roxanne talked about a couple of graphic novels that have Newbery potential. She talked through how we can “read pictures” and where that fits into Newbery Criteria. Another graphic title I want to discuss is HEY, KIDDO, by Jarrett J. Krosoczka. It came out just about a week ago, so many may not […]
Scott McCloud, a well respected expert about Comics and Graphic Novels, declares, “Pictures ARE text” and “Pictures ARE meaning” in an interview (17:45) and that they are not just illustrations in a novel of words. I already cited these words in a comment about Shannon Hale’s Real Friends in January and urged Heavy Medal readers to expand the meaning […]
When the National Book Awards Longlist was announced a few weeks ago I wasn’t sure it would relate very much to mock-Newbery stuff. As Roxanne pointed out in her post, at least five of the ten books were very much on the older end of the teen audience. But today the five Finalists were announced and it […]
Maybe you’ve heard of Erin Entrada Kelly? She won a little award called The Newbery last year. And although the winner of last year’s Newbery doesn’t factor at all into this year’s decision, of course it means people are going to pay attention to her newest novel. We, here at Heavy Medal, included. Ultimately YOU […]
When Heavy Medal readers gave monthly “Suggestions” of likely Newbery contenders from March through August, Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s THE BOOK OF BOY was at the top of the list (tied with THE JOURNEY OF LITTLE CHARLIE) with eight suggestions. It was an early 2018 publication, which is obviously an advantage in that process…but also: a […]
It’s almost like we deliberately tried to start our book discussion this year on the darkest notes. Two novels Steven discussed both feature dead mothers/parents. The two titles I’m going to present in this post also have dead mothers — not only that, both mothers died giving birth to our protagonists. Even more, both books […]
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