The Grey King: 1976 Newbery Award Winner

In March of 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!

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Will Stanton: The Youngest of the Old

"Yet singing the golden harp shall guide / To break their sleep and bid them ride."

Recovering from a hepatitis attack, young Englishman Will Staton is sent to the Welsh coast to recover at his mother's cousin's home.  He cannot recall at first that he the youngest immortal Old One, servants of the Light that protect the world from the Dark.  When he meets the albino boy, Bran Davies, and his white dog with silver eyes, Cafall, the quest comes back to memory.  Will must find the golden harp that will waken the six sleepers who will partake in the last battle against the Dark, but the Grey King, an agent of the Dark, is working hard to stop him, and the madman Caradog Pritchard, is making things difficult with his stories of sheep-killing dogs.  Can Will find the harp, and why can Bran see and understand the quest Will was given?

Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising Sequence is my brother's absolute favorite series of fantasy novels.  But before I read this book for this project, I had not ever read any of the series, of which The Grey King is the fourth book.  While I devoured J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia and Space Trilogy, I never had a desire to read any of this series because it was something that belonged to my brother.

Like Tolkien and Lewis, Susan Cooper is a wonderful British author of fantasy, and this book is a wonderful example.  While I was a bit lost because I was reading the fourth book in her series, the tales soon captivated me and I was sucked into the land of Wales and an English newcomer to the land.  The story is a good rendition of the battle between the forces of Light and the forces of Darkness.

Anyone who loves Arthurian legends of Briton will enjoy this book, and possibly this series, which I will have to read now.  The Grey King in particular draws from the legends of King Arthur and Guinevere, though I will not give away how that is possible in a book that takes place in 1970s Wales.  

When You Reach Me: 2010 Newbery Award Winner

In March of 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!

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Miranda : Seeking Answers

"I am coming to save your friend's life, and mine."

It is the school year of 1978 - 1979 and Miranda is twelve years old.  Her best friend since infancy, Sal, has suddenly stopped talking to her and she feels lonely as a latchkey kid.  She relates to the character of Meg from her favorite book, A Wrinkle in Time because she suddenly has no one to talk to and she feels like she doesn't fit in. There is also a mysterious person who is leaving her notes in the New York City apartment she shares with her mother, notes that suggest things about Miranda that no one else knows, things that haven't happened yet.  Who is the mysterious person and what happened to the spare key her mother hid?  Why is there a guy running naked through the neighborhood?  Why does the homeless man on the corner laugh so much and act so weird?  And how is Miranda going to find new friends to replace Sal?

This was a book I had to read twice in a row.  The first time I read  When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, the pieces hadn't fallen into place until the very end of the book.  I had to reread the story to see how they had fit and to see the events I had missed before in a new light.  This story was very well written and extremely engaging.  

The biggest idea in this novel is the same idea that is in Madeleine L'Engle's novel, A Wrinkle in Time, and that idea it time travel.  Miranda herself wonders about it, as do other characters in the story, and each asks if it could be possible, and how it could work.  Could the homeless laughing man actually be a time traveler or is it just a figment of Miranda's imagination?  

Friendships play a big role in the story.  Sal just inexplicably decides to stop being friends with Miranda on day, which bothers her.  She has to make new friends, which is a difficult thing to do for some.  There is also fellow sixth-graders Annemarie and Julia, who decide one day to just stop being friends in the way that preteen girls do.  Eventually, Miranda comes to realize that in order to make new friends and strengthen old ones, she must grow and learn to emphasize with each of her fellow classmates.

This is a great read, but the concepts are a bit more intellectual and mature than some children can fathom at the suggested fourth grade reading level.

Flora and Ulysses: 2014 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!

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Flora Belle Buckman: The Cynic

"I promise to always turn back toward you."

Comic-book loving Flora Buckman, the only way to cope with her distant mother and her depressed father is to be cynical.  When a squirrel is sucked up into a neighbor's runaway vacuum, Flora comes to his rescue and brings the squirrel back to life. She is then amazed to find that the incident has left the squirrel with super hero powers of flight and super-strength, just like in her beloved comic books.  She names him Ulysses and takes him with her.  With the help of Ulysses, the weird boy next door named William Spiver, and a series of zany events, Flora learns to hope and love again and teaches those around her to do the same.

Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures was an interesting read for me.  The story is fantastic in nature, being a story about a super-hero squirrel.  The zaniness of the story kept me enthralled until the end of the book.  Having already read Kate DiCamillo's first Newbery Award book The Tale of Despereaux and her book Because of Winn-Dixie, I was used to her writing style, which flows freely and reads easily.

The theme of this book is love, family love in particular.  Flora has tried to stop loving those around her because it appears those around her have stopped loving her with all of their heart.  Yet when she saves Ulysses, a little of the cynical wall that she has built up around her heart starts to melt.  Throughout the adventures the tow have, they touch the lives around them, from Flora's parents, to William Spiver and his great-aunt, to the neighbor of her father's.  The story twists and turns and even has an arch-nemesis. Overall, it is a fun read with an ending that seems to mean good things to come for our superhero and his sidekick.

The Giver: 1994 Newbery Award Book

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.

Jonas: The One Who Sees Beyond

"He is to be alone, apart, while he is prepared by the current Receiver for the job which is most honored in our community."

In the Community where eleven-year-old Jonas lives, everything is the same.  No one is different, though they have different skills, it is rude to comment about something that makes them different.  The Community lacks the ability to feel, due to the choice long ago to go to "Sameness," but everyone is happy, as it is a seemingly Utopian society.  Jonas is discovered to have a gift that allows him to see beyond his Community, even though he does not understand, nor does anyone else in his community.  At the Ceremony of Twelve, when the children who are about to turn twelve receive their assignments for their adult careers, Jonas is selected to become the trainee of the most honored of his Community's Elders, The Receiver of Memory, the only one who knows what feelings, colors, and memories are.  Jonas, as the new Receiver, is given these memories from the old man, who calls himself The Giver, memories of warmth and love, of murder and pain, of life well before "Sameness".   In receiving these memories, Jonas learns that life in his Community isn't as happy as it seems, and he is torn between living the life he knows, or the one he longs for as a result of his memories.

This is the first book that I have read since undertaking this journey of reading all of the Newbery Award winning books that I had already read before.  I have read this book numerous times, and have read two of its sequels.  Every time I read it I notice something else in the story, another layer that makes me think.  The Giver, one of two Newbery Award winners by author Lois Lowry, is a story about what could happen if everything was the same.  I feel that it is a story of the human spirit triumphing over suppression, of love being able to conquer anything it chooses.  While the community is seemingly utopian, with everyone polite and devoid of any true feelings or differences that would make them self-conscious, it is ultimately a dystopian society with many problems, which is only seen by the two in the Community who hold on to the old memories.

The Graveyard Book: 2009 Newbery Medal 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.

Nobody Owens: The Living Boy 

‟I know my name,‟ he said.  ‟I'm Nobody Owens.  That's who I am."

A toddler wanders through a graveyard, oblivious to the fact that he is the only one of his family still alive, oblivious to the evil that pursues him.  For nearly fifteen years, Nobody, nicknamed Bod, lives in an old London cemetery.  He is the only living soul, raised by the otherworldly inhabitants as their own.  He is taught basic skills such as reading and writing and history, as well as ghostly skills of fading and haunting.  He discovers the ways of the living and prepares to deal with the evil that stalks him with the help of his ghost parents, the friends of the graveyard, and his mysterious guardian, Silas, who lives in the dark. 

This book was unlike any children's book that I have ever read.  The ghost stories alone would have given me nightmares as a child.  The first chapter has a grisly murder scene in it, making this book a book that is not for the faint of heart, but a great story for anyone who loves suspense and fantasy.  I did enjoy this story immensely.  The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman utterly fascinated me with its supernatural aspects and its descriptions of the characters as well as its original storyline.  The story is about wanting to belong; Bod wants to belong with his ghost family as well as with humans, while each of the ghosts wish they had ways of belonging when they were alive. 

A Wrinkle In Time: 1963 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 - The image is used for identification purposes only under the fair use clause.

Meg and Charles Wallace Murray: The Misfits

"We tesser.  Or you might say, we wrinkle".

Throughout her life, Meg Murray felt as though she didn't fit in, that her little brother, Charles Wallace, didn't fit in either, and that everyone else was easily able to conform to society's norms.  While her mother and twin brothers can act the part, she and her little brother have nothing in common with the.  So she is surprised one day to find that the popular athlete, Calvin O'Keefe, also feels like an outcast. Add to that the mystery of her father's disappearance and the sudden arrival of three very odd stranger to their town and Meg doesn't know what's serious and what's not.  When the mysterious strangers discuss that there is a wrinkle in time and that Meg's father is caught in it somehow, Meg finds herself journeying with Charles Wallace and Calvin on a very strange and wondrous journey to find her father.

I had never read A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle before stating this undertaking.  I had been told I would love it, but just never had the inclination to read it before this.  In fact, I had never read a single one of her books, which may surprise some of my friends given that I love fantasy and science fiction works.  Having just finished the book, I found that I really enjoyed it once I got into it.  I have to admit it did take me a good number of chapters to really be able to get into reading this book.  So much of A Wrinkle in Time reminded me of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy and C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy that I found myself pulled in. Knowledge and light overtaking darkness is a major theme of this book.  Love also is a theme of the novel and one could argue that this is an allegory of the Christian faith, such as many of C.S. Lewis' fiction books.  This is not surprising given that L'Engle was Christian. It is a great fantasy read as well, for those who enjoy the previously mentioned trilogies.  Perhaps after I am done with my project I will read the rest of her books, as A Wrinkle In Time is the first in a long serious of books dealing with the Murray and O'Keefe families.