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.

Johnny Tremain: 1944 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 - The image is used for identification purposes only under the fair use clause.

Jonathan Lyte Tremain: The Boy Who Stood as a Man

"A boy in time of peace and a man in time of war."

At the dawn of the American Revolution in the city of Boston in the Royal Colony of Massachusetts, there was a boy named Johnny Tremain.  He was apprenticed to an elderly silversmith and showed promise of being a master silversmith, but in an unfortunate accident he burns his hand to the point where it is not longer usable and he is ultimately thrown out of the silversmith's home.  Through a series of events, he becomes the trusted boy of a printer who helps the Sons of the Revolution, and through Johnny's eyes, the story of Boston's role in starting the American Revolution is played out.

This was the first time I read Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes, although I did have intentions of reading it before.  Since I have a deep love for American History and reading both, this story was extremely interesting  and enjoyable to me once I got through the first few chapters.  The story and its vivid descriptions of both the people of Boston and the beginnings of the Revolution itself were very well-thought out.  Sam Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere and the likes come to life in the pages of Johnny Tremain, and I especially liked the descriptions of James Otis.  The story reminded me of the loss that both the Yankees and the British felt in the start of the war.  Boys as young as fifteen were fighting in the start of the war, and some were dying.  Some people lost everything they had in Boston, and Esther Forbes did a very good job depicting those losses in her story.   Johnny himself must choose whether to stand as a man or remain a boy when he suffers his own losses.

If you enjoy American History and the time period surrounding the American Revolution in particular, you should read this book.