Dicey's Song : 1983 Newbery Award

The beginning of March 2014 I started a new undertaking: reading every single Newbery Medal Winner book. A number of them I have read in the past, but I am reading them with fresh eyes,and reviewing them for others. I am not reading them in order, as some will require some effort on my part to find them all. Want to keep track of which books I read? Check them out at Confessions of a Wannabe Reader!

Cover of the book - used for identification purposes only under the fair use clause

Dicey Tillerman : Keeping at Arm's Length

"You've been responsible a long time and done a good job.  Take a little rest now."

Dicey Tillerman is thirteen and lives with her three siblings James, Maybeth, and Sammy at her grandmother's house in the Chesapeake Bay area of Maryland, a place they had only recently moved to.  For so long, she has had to take care of siblings, having been abandoned by their mother in a parking lot in Massachusetts.  She feels lost having someone else do it, but Gram is determined to be the parent, as well as keep her own past hidden from her granddaughter.  Dicey's mother, living in Boston in a psychiatric hospital, is no better than catatonic, and the news worries Dicey and  James.  The family has to stay together, and that to Dicey means keeping others out.  But people like Maybeth's music teacher Mr. Lingerle, the slow shop keeper Millie, and fellow students Jeff and Mina, find their way into Dicey's heart and into the family fold. Dicey soon begins to learn that maybe taking care of others means letting others take care of her as well.

Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt is the second in a series of books written by the author.  Like Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, this book's resolution isn't really a resolution, but rather a interlude in the lives of the Tillerman children.  The book leaves you wondering what will happen next.

Dicey, the eldest of four, is consumed with worry.  She worries that her grandmother won't be able to care for them.  She worries that her little sister Maybeth won't be able to live a normal life, and that James and Sammy won't be able to fit in.  She worries that her mother will never be coming home or that she will take them off somewhere else to fend for themselves again.  She toughens herself up so that people can't get in, since so many people have left her, that she resists and fights when Mina, Jeff, Mr. Lingerle and even Millie find their way into the family.  

Dicey also has to learn to let go but still hold on.  For most of her siblings' lives, she has been their mother, and now that they live with their grandmother, Dicey must learn to stop being the mother in the other children's life.  Grandmother warns her that she must learn to continue to hold on though, something that confuses Dicey.  It isn't until she starts letting others into her hear besides her siblings that she learns what Grandmother means, and also learns that her grandmother is speaking from experience.  

This was the first book I could recall reading from this author, and I did enjoy it.  I am not sure thought if I want to continue on in the series.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond: 1959 Newbery Award Winner

The beginning of March 2014 I started a new undertaking: reading every single Newbery Medal Winner book. A number of them I have read in the past, but I am reading them with fresh eyes,and reviewing them for others. I am not reading them in order, as some will require some effort on my part to find them all. Want to keep track of which books I read? Check them out at Confessions of a Wannabe Reader!

Cover of the book - Used for Identification Purposes only Under the Fair Use Clause

Kit Tyler: Longing to Escape

"There is no escape if love is not there."

Katherine Tyler, known as Kit, is an orphaned English teenager without a home.  Her grandfather, a Royalist and a rich man, has recently died, and his Caribbean home has been sold off to pay debts.  The only place for Kit to go is to Puritan Connecticut, to the home of an aunt she has never met.  Aunt Rachel and Uncle Matthew Wood take her in, much to the delight of Kit's cousin Mercy and to the chagrin of their other daughter Judith.  However, Kit feels lonely, as she doesn't fit in to the stern Puritan society of the hamlet Wethersfield, and longs to escape the confines of her new life.  Her only place of refuge is the meadow surrounding Blackbird Pond, and it is here that she meets the Widow Hannah Tupper.  Hannah also doesn't fit in to the society around them, as she is a Quaker and called a witch by some in the community.  Kit, along with the young sailor Nat Easton and the dim-witted child Prudence Cruff, both of who also don't fit in ti visit the widow in secret.  When Kit's visits are discovered, she finds herself under suspicion of witchcraft and must stand trial herself.  Will her love prevail?

The Witch of Blackbird Pond was the second book of Elizabeth George Speare's to win a Newbery award, and it was the second of her books that I ever read as a child.  In fifth grade, I was introduced to this author when my teacher read The Sign of the Beaver to the class.  Naturally, I sought out another book by her, and the school librarian recommended The Witch of Blackbird Pond. I devoured the book.  Speare's writing style to this day enthralls me, and she makes the time periods come alive in my mind.

Kit is an outsider to the way of life in the community.  She tried hard to be dull and drab, as she feels she must in the strict and stern ways of the Puritans, but there's a part of her that feels like a colorful bird locked in a cage.  This feeling is one that people can relate to.  How often does one smother their own personality to be something for someone else?  While Kit does it out of necessity, she find she can't completely hide who she is, and it is only at Hannah's house that she can ultimately find the freedom to express herself and be who she wishes to be.  She finds love and acceptance with Hannah, but also finds that maybe society at large is not really as discouraging as she thought it to be.  She comes to view her uncle in a new light as the story progresses, and she sees that where she only saw sternness lives also a quiet strength that she never knew was there and a glimmer of the man her aunt has come to love.

This story is set in late 17th century Connecticut, when Puritans ruled New England.  Yet, the way of life as the Puritans knew it was changing, as the King of England started to take more and more of an interest in the shipping and industry of the area and moved to take stronger control of it.  This is mirrored in the novel as the Puritans begin to chafe under the new Royal Governor, with the town divided on whether of not they will acknowledge his rule.  It is well written and ends on a happier note, hiding the turmoil that the area will come to endure and will ultimately assist in leading up to the American Revolution. 

It's Like This, Cat: 1964 Newbery Award Winner

The beginning of March 2014 I started a new undertaking: reading every single Newbery Medal Winner book. A number of them I have read in the past, but I am reading them with fresh eyes,and reviewing them for others. I am not reading them in order, as some will require some effort on my part to find them all.  Want to keep track of which books I read?  Check them out at Confessions of a Wannabe Reader!

Cover of the book - Used for Identification purposes only under the fair use clause

Dave Mitchell: Seeing Through New Eyes

" My father is always talking about how a dog can be very educational for a boy.  This is one reason I got a cat."

Dave Mitchell is a normal teen growing up in New York City.  He is fourteen and doesn't see eye to eye with his father, which cases many shouting matches.  When they yell at each other, Dave's mom has another asthma attack.  It is after one such fight that Dave storms out, headed to the crazy cat lady Kate's home.  He meets a striped stray tomcat and decides to bring the cat home.  Naming the cat Cat, Dave starts to notice that Cat brings about a strange series of events.  First, Dave meets the strange young man Tom Ransom while trying to rescue Cat from a locked cage.  Then, while on the beach at Coney Island with Cat, he meets a sweet teenager named Mary and begins to date her.  Lastly, he begins to realize that maybe life with his dad isn't as hard as he thought, and starts to see that his family isn't as overbearing as he imagined, all because of an old tom named Cat.

Written by Emily Newville, It's Like This, Cat is a coming of age story.  Set in the late 1950s or early part of the 1960s, the has a whimsical feel of the era that happened right before the turbulence of the hippie generation.  The book is a story about a boy, his love for a cat, and the relationship he has with his father.

It is a story about learning how to perceive people, and how perceptions can change over time.  Dave sees his dad as overbearing and always yelling, but doesn't see that he is much like his dad.  He sees his mother as quiet and shy and sickly, not understanding that he and his father both have been stressing her out.  His friendships change as he grows older, and while he doesn't understand it, he vents to his cat.  Cat takes everything in and becomes Dave's confidant.  Cat also helps him to make new friends like Tom Ransom and Mary whom allow him to grow, and those friends grow with him as a result.  Dave is starting to shed his childlike perceptions and see the world through adult eyes.

This wasn't the first time I have read this book, but it was the first time I read it with the intent to study it.  It is a good read.