Back in May I started my first Mock Newbery group with the teens at my library. As I started preparing for this new challenge, I was brushing up on the criteria and realized that I have read many of the newer winners and honors (mostly during my own lifetime) and very few of the older ones. I also realized that the 100th anniversary of the award itself is coming up soon.
So, I challenged myself to read all of the winners and honors that I can get my hands on starting at the very beginning. And I'm going to share my thoughts with ya'll here!
1921
Some interesting things happened in the world in 1921, the year that the first books were eligible for the Newbery Award. Here's a bit of context:
- Turkey becomes a country after the fall of the Ottoman Empire
- Insulin is discovered.
- Congresswoman Alice Mary Robertson becomes the first woman to preside over the floor of US House of Representatives.
- Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party
- Warren G. Harding becomes the 29th president of the United States.
- National quotas on Eastern European and Jewish immigrants are established in the US.
- The Tulsa Race Riots leaves an estimated 39 dead.
- World War I formally ends.
- The first Miss America Pageant is held.
- White Castle opens in Wichita, Kansas.
- The Kid premieres in theaters.
- Wonder Bread begins distribution.
- Albert Einstein wins the Nobel Prize in Physics for this work on solar energy. He also lectures in New York City on his new theory of relativity.
- Gucci starts selling handbags.
- Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss) attends Dartmouth College.
- Amelia Earhart takes first flying lesson.
- At the Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia an army of 10 to 15 thousand miners and their families face a private army of some 2,000 men and 2,100 state and federal troops in the largest civil uprising to date.
And the Honor books were....
Let's start with the weirdest first, why don't we? In this story we follow young Freddie on a wild adventure that begins when he visits the local tobacco shop for his father. There he meets a strange old man and old lady who claim to be relatives and tell him a weird tale about the statue outside the shop, some local citizens and the strange "tobaccy" found in the Chinaman's head container on the top shelf. Of course, after a short time, Freddie smokes the special "tobaccy" and that is where things get really odd.
As is obvious, there is no way that this story could be published for children today. Even having a child walk into a tobacco shop is controversial enough. Some of the things that happen along the way are even more inappropriate. However, the adventure itself is reminiscent of Wonderland and Gulliver's Travels in a way that pulls you along through the story, so it is surprisingly entertaining.
Next we have a mystery set in the country near Boston. A group of children learn some local stories and history from a beekeeper and discover that it all relates to a mystery in their own family. The narrative is told in interlocking stories and "present" day circumstances.
The children are pretty free in how they spend their days and the attitudes about "girl things" and "boy things" is a bit archaic, but overall nothing is objectionable by today's standards. It is overall a quiet and bucolic read.
Cedric the Forester by Bernard Marshall; illustrated by J. Scott WilliamsThis one is a medieval tale in the vein of Ivanhoe or The Song of Roland. Here we find the tale of a forester's son and a lord's son who become close friends, with the forester's son eventually earning a title and knighthood for protecting the family of the lord. The language is quite flowery and the adventures quite harrowing.
Occasionally the serfdom situation can be a bit icky, especially since the story is told from the lord's son's point of view. And the violence is far more prevalent than in many stories written for this age group today. But if you know a child that loves knights, castles, and quests, they could possibly enjoy this one. Just remember that they will have to get past the complexity of the language and grammar since it is told in epic poem format.The Golden Fleece and the Heroes That Lived Before Achilles by Padraic Colum; illustrated by Willy Pogany
A compilation of Greek mythological hero tales, in some ways this book is even better than the winner below, in that it has stood the test of time. By and large, mythology does not change and these stories are still very much part of our consciousness. And they are still fun, too!
The Great Quest by Charles Boardman Hawes; illustrated by George VarianFinally, we have the story of a young man whose uncle is tricked into selling everything he owns and traveling to Africa on a secret mission. In the end the bad men who tricked him are there to capture or purchase slaves to bring back to the United States to sell. At the time of the story, this is an illegal, but not uncommon, enterprise. And ultimately Josiah (our young man) defeats their plans with the help of his friends, but not before his uncle is ruined and dies a terrible death.
Of all the Honor books, this is the most problematic. While the plot is an adventure, the prose is very unwieldy and the topic makes the reader feel downright dirty. And while Josiah doesn't participate in slave catching, at first he is not against it and in the end only hates the bad men for what they did to his uncle. His main reason for siding against slave catching is a religious girl they find along the way that he finds attractive. Definitely not Newbery material today with its racist and sexist attitudes and language.
And the Winner was....
The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon
A rambling account of Western Civilization from a very privileged white male perspective. Granted, van Loon is highly readable most of the time. And the book covers a whole lot of ground in a somewhat concise manner given its scope. However, the rest of the world is given very little coverage and women don't seem to matter at all. Also, if you read the updated versions, the parts that were added on latter are not nearly as enjoyable; they read like a laundry list of events, people and dates. So try to just read the original parts and don't judge the book by the sad add-on sections.
