.jpg)
Time to get up my books list from 2022. One of my major projects this year was to read at least one Newbery winner or honor books each month. This was inspired by the fact that 2022 was the 100 year anniversary of the award. I had intended to do more of a wide span across that 100 years, but I read many of the older books either by myself or with the family as a kid. So in the end, I read more of the books that have won more recently, because I fell mostly out-of-touch with children's lit as an adult, so I'm not super familiar with winners from the past 15 years or so.
Basically, after I started reading adult books in 6th grade, I stopped reading anything else written for children, with only a few exceptions. I read more age-appropriate non-fiction for a while, though I fell off reading any non-fiction for pleasure sometime in my middle school years. That was too bad, because I find that I actually enjoy non-fiction more than pretty much anything else these days, and I missed many years of good non-fiction reading! There was one exception after I fell off the non-fiction wagon. I read D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths a bunch of times in middle school.
I'll give a bigger breakdown of the Newbery books I read after the full list. The Newbery titles are distinguished with bold text in the list. There are a couple other broad topic trends I'll also discuss. Without further ado, here's the list.
The Genius Under the Table—Eugene Yelchin
Endurance—Alfred Lansing
The Winter Army—Maurice Isserman
Facing the Mountain—Daniel James Brown
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon—Grace Lin
The Westing Game—Ellen Raskin
Northwind—Gary Paulsen
The Monsters of Rookhaven—Padraig Kenny
When the Sea Turned to Silver—Grace Lin
Thief Knot—Kate Milford
The Raconteur's Commonplace Book—Kate Milford
The Beatryce Prophecy—Kate DiCamillo
Amber and Clay—Laura Amy Schlitz
Hello, Universe—Erin Entrada Kelly
Bee People and the Bugs They Love—Frank Mortimer
Bluecrowne—Kate Milford
The Inquisitor's Tale—Adam Gidwitz
The Last Cuentista—Donna Barba Higuera
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies—Seth Grahame-Smith
The New Road to Serfdom—Daniel Hannon
Bridge of Spies—Giles Whittell
Other Words for Home—Jasmine Warga
Wakers—Orson Scott Card
The Black Count—Tom Reiss
The Last Shadow—Orson Scott Card
After the Romanovs—Helen Rappaport
Barred by Congress—Robert M Lichtman
Flora and Ulysses—Kate DiCamillio
Seven Miracles That Saved America—Chris and Ted Stewart
Bomb—Steve Shienkin
The Man with the Poison Gun—Serhii Plokhy
The Last Mapmaker—Christina Soontornvat
The Shadows of Rookhaven—Padraig Kenny
Index, A History of the—Dennis Duncan
The Spy and the Traitor—Ben McIntyre
Shen of the Sea—Arthur Bowie Chrisman
Everything Sad is Untrue—Daniel Nayeri
Tunnel 29—Helena Merriman
The Book of Lost Names—Kristin Harmel
Dead End in Norvelt—Jack Gantos
The Orchid Thief—Susan Orleans
I Must Betray You—Ruta Sepetys
Unbroken—Laura Hillenbrand
River Kings—Cat Jarman
Fallout—Steve Sheinkin
Call It Courage—Armstrong Sperry
Sarah, Plain and Tall—Patricia MacLachlan
The Murder of Mr Wickham—Claudia Gray
Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine—Anne Applebaum
Three Times Lucky—Sheila Turnage
Walk Two Moons—Sharon Creech
The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing—Sheila Turnage
River of the Gods—Candice Millard
The Inheritance Games—Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Praying with the Enemy—Steven T Collis
China: Fragile Superpower—Susan L. Shirk
A Magic Steeped in Poison—Judy I. Lin
Liquid Rules—Mark. Miodownik
A Single Shard—Linda Sue Park
The Hawthorne Legacy—Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Church of Cowards—Matt Walsh
Stalin's Curse—Robert Gellately
Red, White, and Whole—Rajani Larocca
Echo—Pam Munoz Ryan
The Christmas Chronicles—Tim Slover
The Christmas Blessing—Melody Carlson
The Gifts of Imperfection—Brene Brown
Black Bird, Blue Road—Sofiya Pasternak
The Door in the Wall—Marguerite de Angeli
The Tipping Point — Malcolm Gladwell
What If? 2—Randall Munroe
Transatlantic—Colum McCann
The Final Gambit—Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Red-handed—Peter Schweizer
Exodus: God, Slavery, and Freedom—Dennis Prager
I'll start with the Newbery books. I did eventually get The Last Cuentista, which was the winner for 2022. Red, White, and Whole was an honor winner from 2022 as well. I will say that in both, it's clear to see the wokeness that's creeping into virtually all children's lit these days. It's like you can't get published without something of it. The Last Cuentista has a gratuitous lesbian couple thrown in, though they could easily been thrown in under editor pressure, since they didn't impact that story really at all. It was overall an interesting book I liked pretty well. It was a sci-fi/dystopian cross set on a generational ark-type ship right as and after the Earth is destroyed. One of the things that made this an interesting Newbery choice as that it wasn't on anybody's Newbery radar through 2021. I've made a habit of trying to stay on top of the sources that pretty reliably report on potential winners. This year, for example, most of the things on the radar actually won awards. Generally, I try to buy up copies of the book potentials that crop up a lot, so our school library will have copies available of whatever wins. It's also a good way to stock up on the better stuff coming out in any particular year. Because it worked out well this year, I had already bought the 2023 Caldecott winner and an honor book in advance this year along with a Newbery honor book. Looks like I'll get the Newbery winner in pretty quickly as well, which is helpful. The Last Cuentista took forever to arrive because they were out-of-stock for a really long time. It didn't arrive until school was already out for the summer, and I ordered it in early February!
Surprisingly, all my favorites were Newbery Honor winners rather than the actual award winners, though I read a pretty even mix of the two. One of the favorites was Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, which won an honor in 2010. It's a fantasy inspired by Chinese folklore. The whole thing is based on the relationship between a poor young girl and a dragon that can't fly. They go on a quest to solve their problems, aided by various side characters with interesting stories of their own. I found it to be quite a charming little tale. That effect is stronger thanks to the beautiful drawings. It encourages kindness to family and strangers alike and shows that wealth isn't everything. Lots of good messages for everyone, especially kids, and there was nothing about it that I found objectionable.
Inquisitor's Tale was another favorite. It won an honor in 2017. It's set in Medieval France and is essentially a fantasy. What I really liked was the strong historical roots of the fantasy elements, which are consistent with the period by in large. The main characters are a black monk who is superhumanly strong, a girl who can see the future, and a Jewish boy who has healing abilities. Oh, and there is miraculous dog too. The whole story feels like a young adult homage to The Canterbury Tales, with more cohesiveness and humor to pull readers in. The interactions of the children is interesting, since each comes from an undesirable minority for the time. Despite the discrete events along the way, there is a cohesiveness to each tale that plays a role in the resolution. I also really liked that it had an overall positive attitude toward religion, which felt authentic considering the period. Yet, it doesn't sugar-coat things either, just accurately represents the time. I thought the whole thing was very well-crafted.
My final favorite of the year was Echo, which won an honor in 2016. This is another cross between fantasy and historical fiction, which is apparently a genre blend I'm a fan of. One interesting thing about this story is it covers a wide span of time and space. The main conceit of the story is there is is a magical harmonica that ties all these various people together in the end across time. I listened to this particular book, which was awesome, because the audiobook had lots of amazing harmonica performances strewn through it. As a music lover, this was appealing. It was also interesting to see how the harmonica made it's way from Germany to various places in America, bringing different fortunes along the way. Really, this book is a bunch of stories threaded together only at the very last. The thing about it that drove me crazy is that none of the stories are resolved until the final chapter basically. The structure of the book is discrete stories that really aren't connected beyond the harmonica element. So I'd be really absorbed in a story of a family escaping the Nazis to abruptly be dumped into the setup of an entirely different story. I didn't enjoy that structuring to be honest, though I did find each story very engaging in and of itself. Overall, this book was good enough to get into the top tier, but it just barely made it over some other contenders, like Bomb or Three Times Lucky, for instance.
Pretty much all of the Newbery books were good, though there were a couple I thought were duds. I'd put Walk Two Moons in that category along with Hello, Universe. I suppose they are well-enough written, but I found the stories to be pretty boring. Everything else sort of fell in the middle somewhere. Overall, it was an interesting project to read one Newbery each month. I would recommend it to others.
I also had some favorites among the other books I read this year. Endurance was the first book club book I read this year, and it was definitely one of the best books our group had ever read. It's a pretty landmark book of the non-fiction history genre from what I gather too. It was published in the 1950's and set a trend that lasts today for a much more literary form of non-fiction. It describes the Shackleton expedition to Antarctica in harrowing detail. It really reads a lot more like crazy fiction than history. I couldn't get enough of it. Additionally, though I vaguely knew about Shackleton before, I didn't understand how miraculous of a story it really is. I kept waiting for someone to die in these horrible circumstances, though no one did! All the details of the story were new to me, so I found it really interesting. It also caused me to research into the expedition more, which increased my confidence that God really had a hand in protecting the expedition. Additionally, probably partially because of the time it was written, I came away with a great sense of admiration for those among us, especially among men, to launch these sorts of explorations that are so inherently dangerous. The heights of what they were able to accomplish despite their multitude of problems are truly a testament to the the human spirit! Pretty sure I would have just died! It also made me a lot more grateful for all I've been blessed with, including a nice, warm home.
I was also on something of a Cold War kick this year, and I really enjoyed pretty much all those books. Red Famine was an interesting one, though it was very long. It really helped me to understand the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine better since I saw more of the history of the Soviet Holodomor in Ukraine. Stalin was truly an awful person in so many ways! Having been so abused by the Russians in the past, it isn't surprising that the Ukrainians are fighting so desperately to keep them out today.
I also really enjoyed Tunnel 29, which was one of the heroic West Berlin efforts to help people in East Berlin despite the Berlin Wall. Fortunately, those heroes were overall successful, unlike many who attempted the same thing. Bridge of Spies describes a Cold War prisoner exchange and was also quite good, though more people are familiar with it since it is a movie. I read it for book club again, and definitely enjoyed it. I Must Betray You is technically historical fiction, but I'm throwing it in with the others because I really did like it. It's set in Cold War Romania. I really didn't know anything about communist Romania or Ceaușescu, so it was interesting to learn about the history there.
There were a couple of POW books I read this year that I also found quite interesting. Normally, I tend to avoid World War II books because they seem pretty overplayed. It feels like our culture overly focuses on World War II though lots of other interesting things have happened before or since then. Unbroken felt like a good exception to the rule. It's the story of a former Olympian and American Air Force hero who was adrift on the Pacific for an extended period, then picked up and interned by the Japanese for quite a while. The circumstances he went through were pretty terrible, but it was gratifying to see how he and other POWs were freed as the the war came to an end. I considered buying the YA version for our library, but so far I've decided against it because a lot of the material in the adult version was pretty adult as far as the violence he faced, and I couldn't see how it could be trimmed out to leave an intact story. Maybe it's fine, but I decided not to risk it after reading some complaining reviews.
The other POW story I read was Praying With the Enemy. I liked this one better overall, perhaps because it's a Shadow Mountain title. This one is set during the Korean War and also involves the American Air Force, though this guy was a pilot, I believe. He was shot down in North Korean territory and pretty severely messed up his ankles, as I remember. At any rate, he pretty much couldn't walk, which is why he got captured. The other major person in the story was a Christian North Korean who was conscripted into the communist forces as a driver. The American didn't start out as a religious person, but became more Christian during his internment. The circumstances were again quite terrible, though this story had more instances of innocent North Koreans trying to help him. Eventually, The Christian North Korean and the American POW end up in the same place. The North Korean is kind to the American and protects him multiple times and eventually the 2 hatch a plan to escape together. Fortunately, they are successful and have a harrowing escape to be reunited with family who escaped the war. The strong Christian overtones and cooperation in this book is what edged it out as as the better POW book for me.
Speaking of Christian overtones, one of my other favorites of this year also had them. I totally loved Everything sad is Untrue. This is a autobiographical piece of fiction where the author describes his life as a refugee from Iran. It doesn't come out until about half way through the story that they became refugees because his mom converted to Christianity as did the author. The book is often quite sad, very hilarious, and extremely uplifting. It seems like a weird combination, but it really works. I really like reading the stories of Christians who escaped persecution. People often don't realize how persecuted Christians really are. The truth is, Christians are persecuted in more countries than other religion. It's important that we support and try to help these faithful brothers and sisters. I highly recommend this book.
Of course, Jews are the second most persecuted religion, so they definitely need our support as well. This year I read Black Bird, Blue Road, which is a middle grade piece of fiction. It's set in a mythical Jewish country and deals with a girl whose twin brother has leprosy. They journey to find a cure together and encounter a number of figures from Jewish lore. It was an interesting book and dealt with themes that I feel are valuable for children.
The last winner that I'll describe is The Inheritance Games series. I read three of those books this year. It reminds me of The Westing Game for a new generation, with lots of interesting puzzles. The premise is that a broke girl mysteriously inherits almost the entire fortune of a billionaire. But she has to live in the crazy mansion of the family with the disinherited family, which includes a number of teen boys. I found the first two books to be quite good and ripped through them both pretty quickly. I found the third book to be different and slowed down on it considerably. Part of the problem was that the overarching puzzle was a lot less engaging. A big time gap since the previous books really didn't help. More of the issue for me is that it introduces immorality, which I think is bad and I don't like to see in a YA series. Additionally, it's supposed to be a resolution-type book, and I really disliked pretty much all the resolutions. Pretty much every resolution was completely wrong or stupid in my opinion.
That lead me to the year's duds. There weren't too many duds this year, but there were a few. I found Index: a History of the pretty boring overall, though I did learn some things from it, so it wasn't a total waste. Transatlantic makes the duds list too. I was expecting something totally different, which didn't help. As it was, I found it pretty boring and had the same problem as Da Vinci Code in that it's basically total fiction that pulls in just enough truth to be annoying. I didn't really enjoy The Book of Lost Names either. It's another based on World War II, which already puts it on my naughty list. Also, it went so far out of the realm of what would have happened in the period to stretch my suspension of disbelief beyond the breaking point. It was a book club book that really didn't hit the mark for me.
I'm sad to say that The Murder of Mr. Wickham was a dud for me as well. The premise seemed interesting: a house party with all the major Austen couples in attendance. Plus, who doesn't want to see Mr. Wickham die? Haha! Because everyone has good motives for the murder, it is hard to predict the end. There were elements I thought were good, like the Knightleys hosting the house party. That's very Emma. The justifications for everyone else being there also seemed plausible. What I really didn't like was the introduction of some wokeness to the Austen world. It was worked into the story pretty well, but would be unbelievable for the time. There were enough other misses in this book to send it to the dud pile, though it was probably the best of the duds.
A surprising dud this year was Northwind. I've liked Gary Paulsen's books in my childhood and thought it appropriate to read his posthumously printed book. However, I really didn't enjoy it. The plot was too simplistic and it lacked the charm of his earlier books. A shame, though perhaps not that unexpected as death approaches.
I think that pretty well sums up the high and low lights of the list. There's probably others that deserve to be called out a little more, but this feels sufficient to me. Non-fiction seems to be the biggest winner overall with most of the duds falling into fiction. I guess I'm just a lot more picky there.
No comments:
Post a Comment