Newbery Rewind: 1925

Well, it has been a while since I posted. I almost decided to quit blogging, but writing things out is good practice for my brain, so I'm going to keep doing it.

In the meantime, I read the honor and award books for 1925 and 1926. And boy were they dry! But I plugged my way through so I'll write up my thoughts here.

1924

• Hoover became head of the FBI
• The first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix, France.
• Ellis Island closed
• Native Americans were given United States citizenship, while the Asian Exclusion Act becomes part of the Immigration Act of 1924.
• Jimmy Carter, Lee Iococca, Doris Day and Marlon Brando were born.
• IBM and MGM were founded.
• The first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was held.
• First radio broadcast from the White House.
• George Mallory dies on Everest.
• Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming is elected as the first woman governor in the United States.
• Astronomer Edwin Hubble announces that Andromeda, previously believed to be a nebula, is actually another galaxy, and that the Milky Way is only one of many such galaxies in the universe.
• The world's first radio play, Danger by Richard Hughes, is broadcast by the British Broadcasting Company from its studios in London.
• The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Warner is published.
• Lloyd Alexander is born.
• E. Nesbit dies.

And the Honor Books were...

The Dream Coach by Anne Parrish; illustrated by Dillwyn Parrish

This one is really insipid and condescending. It is a collection of short stories supposedly relating dreams that are answered by a fairy in a coach and it is just as saccharine as it sounds. Also, some of the stories are unbelievably racist. Now I know it was a different time, but I had a terrible time finishing this one.

Nicholas: A Manhattan Christmas Story by Anne Carroll Moore 

Confession time: I could not get my hands on this book no matter how hard I tried. Not that I am too disappointed since the Goodreads reviews lead me to believe it is pretty terrible...

And the winner was...

Tales from Silver Lands by Charles J. Finger

My first response kind of says it all: "Ugh, this is the first Newbery book I really had to force myself to read. My eyes kept skimming over the text out of sheer boredom. I hope this is just one white man's interpretation of the tales (or maybe he made them up) because I just can't see people sharing these tales like most authentic oral tradition was shared."

Supposedly the author backpacked through Central and South America to collect these oral tales. Not so sure if I believe it. In any case, they are definitely told through the lens of a white, privileged man, with plenty of "noble savages" and sexist and racist stereotypes. But the worst offense, as stated above, is that they are terribly, terribly boring.