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.

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.

A love that lasted

Chuck was going off to fight in the China Burma theater in the war. Betty was his sweetheart who was staying at home.  He was 25.  She was 21.

The year was 1943.  The date was the 27th of November.  The place was a small Presbyterian church in Pittsburgh.

Over 68 years have passed since that day, the event that created a family, that brought together a couple to whom my father would be born twelve years later.  Theirs was a sweet love that would stand the test of time.

It was a short and sweet ceremony, and they had a small reception, but their love was big and it kept them together through their time of separation.  

They would have four children, though one would quietly pass away before she was 21 years of age.  The other three would go on to marry and have children of their own.

 They would retire and move from Pittsburgh to the warmer climates of Florida.  From here they would travel around the United Sates, visiting their children.  Their youngest son was in the Marine Corps, and they loved to visit him wherever he was stationed when they could.

They would honor the wedding vows they made that day.  They would remain together until Chuck's death in 1989. They were married for forty-six years.