1928 - Gay-Neck, the Story of a Pigeon

A couple of meta-comments. First, how can you not giggle a little at the title of this one?

Second, the Newberys have kind of gone in pairs so far: Gay-Neck and Smoky were stories about animals from birth, Silver Lands and Shen of the Sea were geographically specific folk tales, and the Dark Frigate and Dr. Doolittle were Englishmen going on sea voyages. (And History of Mankind may as well have been two books in one.)

As for the book itself, I'm not sure what to think. Plot-wise, the story is pretty aimless. The anecdotes are mostly unrelated, although many involve the main character and a friend searching for Gay-Neck after he's gone missing. Thus, some chapters have almost no pigeon in them at all. However, others are told from the point-of-view of Gay-Neck, so there aren't any human characters involved.

I guess, then, while Smoky was about the horse interacting with humans and how that affected his life, Gay-Neck is not. The relationship between Gay-Neck and his owner is more like that of friends, rather than master-servant.

Also pervasive, and perhaps the main theme of the book, is the spiritual side of how humans and animals interact, and how they're similar to each other in a religious way. There are actual Buddhist monasteries visited in the book, but the characters also talk about their philosophies of how fear affects humans and animals, about how both view nature as a whole. Some chapters take place in the battles of World War I, and both humans and Gay-Neck are deeply affected by the killing seen on the battlefield.

So, this isn't a plot book, and I don't even think this is a character book. It feels almost like an allegory, about the spirit and how it reacts to fear, but it's hard to pin down. Like I said, I'm not sure what to think. This is the oddest of the Newberys so far, but in a way that I think I like.

1927 - Smoky the Cowhorse

I realized something halfway through this book: even though the Newbery is an award for American children's literature, this is the first that is actually set in America. (Well, History of Mankind had a few chapters on American history, but it made up a slim percentage of the book.) And even then, it's set in an exotic part of the US - looking ahead, I'm not sure when I'll actually hit a book that's set in the present day and is about an average kid.

Anyway, this book follows the life of Smoky from birth to retirement on a nice ranch. Will James obviously knows and loves horses, and I don't really feel strongly either way on whether I like the book.

It may be just me, but the chapters where Clint (the "bronc buster", who takes wild horses and makes them rideable) is breaking Smoky have a strange tone to them. It's almost like reading about a kidnapping and a rape, where the victim eventually develops Stockholm Syndrome.

"Smoky struck once; Clint dodged the front hoof and kept a rubbing. He rubbed past the left ear and down his neck till the withers was reached [...] The little horse quivered and fliched every once in a while but the rubbing process went on till Smoky begin showing symptoms that he could stand it all easy enough."

"Instinct pointed out only one way for him to act, -- it was telling him that neither the human nor the leather belonged up there in the middle of him that way [...] His head went down, and a beller came out of him that said much as "I want you" -- Up went Smoky's withers followed by the hump that made the saddle twist like on a pivot, and last came steel muscles like shot out of the earth and which carried the whole mixed up and crooked conglomeration of man and horse in mid air and seemed like to shake there for a spell before coming down."

I guess my mind's in the gutter. Oh yeah, those passages also show the dialect the entire story's written in, presumably some sort of cowboy speak. It kind of loses its charm part way through.

1926 - Shen of the Sea

First things first: Shen of the Sea has the strangest opening lines of any children's book I've read:

"A shamelessly rainy day, my honorable Brother Chi."

"That is truth, Brother Cha. It rains perfectly hard. There will be plenty of leisure in which to beat the children."

Anyway, it's hard not to compare this to Tales from Silver Lands - both books are collections of short folk tales from specific parts of the world: Silver Lands from South America, Shen from China.

Tales from Silver Lands, to me, contains what I'd expect from folk tales and myths. Animals and nature are personified and talk with humans. Righteous people may be beaten down now, but are rewarded in the end. The good-hearted hero always slays the giant.

Shen of the Sea, on the other hand, doesn't always have a moral in its stories. That first story is about a very wicked child, and a father who doesn't discipline him at all. At the end, instead of learning his lesson, the child spills jam on a carving, throws it against the wall, and accidentally invents printing. He's remembered throughout history for it. The end.

I don't really care about whether a story has a moral or not; it's just frustrating when a main character doesn't go through any changes or challenges over the course of the tale. A lot of the stories were disappointing in that sense. This is my least favorite of the Newberys so far.

1925 - Tales from Silver Lands

This is a collection of short folk tales from all over South America, almost like an Aesop's Fables for that continent. Most stories take up a chapter, with a bit of framing done beforehand by the author, Charles Finger, of the circumstances where he heard the tale.

If this is a collection of actual folk tales, it's hard to critique them too much - the book is more a historical record than a piece of literature. Still, a handful of the stories are disappointing, because the troubles are solved with a deus ex machina in the last couple paragraphs. It's a fairy tale, I know, but some of these are so well done, that the weakness shows in others.

Having only made it through four books so far, it's pretty striking how different they've been from each other. Mankind is straight non-fiction, Dolittle is a whimsical children's book, Frigate is a dark adventure story, and this one is all folk tales. And they've all been enjoyable.

1924 - The Dark Frigate

Another book about sailing. The Newbery folks must love the open seas. (Even The Story of Mankind had chapters on navy battles.)

Actually, the first part of this book takes place on land, and it's incredibly slow going until the main character finally gets on board the ship. This is compounded by the crazy writing style, which uses language like it was written a hundred years before The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle and The Story of Mankind, and likes long, clause-drowned sentences. Take the second sentence of the book, for example:

"His father was master of a London ketch, and they say that before the boy could stand unaided on his two feet he would lean himself, as a child does, against the waist in a seaway, and never pipe a whimper when she thrust her bows down and shipped enough water to douse him from head to heels."

On top of that, the story is set in the 17th century, so the dialogue is more akin to Shakespeare than Sachar. All of this adds up to a book that may be difficult for a middle schooler to tackle, which is the audience the Newbery Medal is targeted for.

With all that said, though, once the book does get going, it is very enjoyable. It's a book about pirates, so there are fights and mutinies and all of that. But it's got a bit of a twist - the pirates are somewhat inept. They attack a ship, and find out it's armed to the teeth and flee. They raid a town and get chased out without any plunder. But none of it is played for comedy; the main character, a non-pirate forced into service, is still in danger throughout the book.

Speaking of which, the main character is a great one. He's a teenage version of the strong, honest loner archetype, having been born sailing and all his family dead or estranged. It's easy to root for him, and enough of the other major characters die that there's a real sense of danger. Perhaps there's been enough time since the Pirates of the Caribbean films to make him into the next Orlando Bloom and the Old One into Johnny Depp. They'd have to add a love story, since the one in the book is mostly non-existant.

Alright, on to Tales from Silver Lands, which I suspect may have more sailing.

1923 - The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle

I had not read any of the Doctor Dolittle series, or seen any of the movies (although "Dr. Dolittle: Tail to the Chief" screams high-quality moviemaking). All I knew was that there was a guy who talked to animals.

However, this book isn't about talking to animals, although that's a big element. It's an adventure book, about growing up in a small town and getting to leave it for strange lands.

With that said, the title is misleading, since there's only one actual voyage. Actually, when I finished, I was surprised at how short the book was - I was expecting more places to be visited. Part of that, I think, was the lack of a narrative arc to the story. The novel is in six parts, and while there are ups and downs throughout the first five parts, there aren't really any in part six. You'd expect a climax, but the book ends with them getting home with minimal trouble. It's a bit of a letdown. (This may be cynical, but Hugh Lofting did have to get more of the series sold.)

Still, though, a lot of that disappointment comes because the book is so charming - my expectations were very high by the end. Doctor Dolittle is a great character, and you really wish you had been the narrator when you were 10 years old, yourself. The animal characters aren't all punchlines, like the previews to the Doctor Dolittle movies seem to have them be; they're like another set of human companions.

The book is a little dated in terms of its knowledge of the world; for example, no one had yet visited the North Pole. But it's also dated in its perception of other cultures. There's a character, "Prince Bumpo" from Africa (whom the bird refers to by the n-word early on) - one schtick of his is that he has gone to Oxford and uses many big words, but often incorrectly. Ha ha, get it? Those backwards natives! Luckily, it's only one feature of his among many, which may have otherwise made the book hard to stomach.

But I don't want to criticize the book too much. It really is a great story. Two books down, and the Newbery people have gotten it right so far.

1922 - The Story of Mankind

1922 was the first year the Newbery Medal was awarded, and it was given to The Story of Mankind, by Hendrik Willem van Loon.

I imagine that other people who try to read all of the Newberys in order get stuck here: this book is big. I chose the original, first edition, which is nearly 500 pages; the updated edition tops 600. It's also non-fiction, walking through, as the title implies, the completely history of mankind.

I've actually read this one before. My middle school librarian offered a challenge to the class one year, that anyone who could read The Story of Mankind would win a free book of their choosing. Being the book nerd I was, I jumped at the chance. I was the only one who actually attempted it, but a few weeks later, I had my book.

This time around, I was actually surprised at how quick of a read the book was, despite its size. There are numerous pictures, and with 64 chapters, there are frequent page breaks. This makes the book feel about a third of the size less than it really was.

The book starts with a foreward, which is a letter written to van Loon's grandchildren. In a way, it's a great introduction to the style of the book: it's a bit like your eccentric, history-buff grandpa telling you about everything that's ever happened. It's not written in academic prose, and isn't afraid to use words like "unwashed" and "savage", which wouldn't fly today. And it's a little outdated, especially in the early chapters about prehistoric man. But you accept it all, because it's so charmingly written.

With that said, for 1922, the book isn't all that inaccurate, and it doesn't have a Christian-centric or Western-centric viewpoint. The last chapter, which does a bit of looking forward, acknowledges that though we may have come a long way as a civilization, we have a long way to go, and will likely repeat the problems of the past, like all civilizations have (and he was right, since this was written between World War I and II).

So, this book is better than I remember it being ten years ago. I'm not sure what the updated versions are like - I think they've finally done some edits of the original book, instead of adding on chapters, like they had been doing through the middle of the century. As it is, it's a little out of date. But, if they can nail the style in the revisions, this would be a great book for an introduction to history for a kid.

Introduction

I was a voracious reader in middle school. This was thanks in large part to Battle of the Books, a program put on by the school's librarian. Teams of three were given the first semester to read a list of about 60 books, and the second semester had weekly one-on-one matchups, each team being quizzed, battles occurring throughout the school during lunch period.

Despite the normal plan of having each teammate read 20 books, I ended up covering virtually the entire list myself each year. As such, I've read much of the children's literature canon, including somewhere around 35 of the 88 Newberys.

But that was a decade ago.

Now, I'm on unemployment, applying to graduate schools and looking for jobs in a jobless economy. This offers a lot of free time. So, in a fit of nostalgia, I'm starting the Newberys from the beginning. Let's see how far I can get.