Newbery Disappointments

I'm currently taking a class in grad school that requires me to read all the Newbery Medal books. I haven't read all of them yet, but I just finished reading the winner, Moon Over Manifest. I did what most book nerds do when the children's literature awards were announced, I looked them up on amazon and Goodreads to see what others had to say about them (John Green tweeted not long after the winner was announced that there was only one review of it on amazon). When I saw that Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool had won, I went to amazon to look it up. I read the plot description and groaned. I'm not a big fan of historical fiction books, and of course, Moon Over Manifest is one (if you want to know what it's about, follow the link, I don't want to repost their reviews). I did not want to read this book, but I had to for class. And I'm still groaning. Moon Over Manifest is not a terrible book. I found it boring, but it's not my favorite genre anyway. It has some good qualities, but overall I gave it two stars. My review, as posted on goodreads:

"Winner of the 2011 Newbery Award. I think my expectations might have been too high because of this honor, but I was very disappointed in this book. I thought it was too long and too slow, and the alternating between past and present drove me crazy. Not much happened in the present except for the three girls running around asking people about the Rattler. The stories that the diviner told from 1918 were interesting and exciting. The book flap says that the girls go "on an honest-to-goodness spy hunt," but the hunt just seems like an excuse to get the ball rolling on the tales from the past. It feels like throughout the book more and more mysterious elements are added that you think relates to their main mystery, but when you get to the end all the mysteries are solved and many of them are not connected. The ending felt like an afterthought when it was realized that the original mystery (the spy) hadn't been solved yet and was quickly mentioned in the last few pages."

My issue with Moon Over Manifest is not that I found it boring, it is would a kid find it boring? I know that 10 or 11 year old me wouldn't make it past the first few pages. I can't realistically see children picking this book up out of a stack *voluntarily* and really enjoying it. Does this really represent the best of children's literature in 2010? Lately there has been a lot of controversy about the book awards, people are asking whether these books are what children would pick or if adults are picking them based on their literary merit. Are these books that adults think children should be reading? I've read a lot of the Newbery winners, and I've read all the ones from the 90s when I was a kid. Most of them, I loved. Missing May, The Giver, Shiloh, Number the Stars: everyone in my class read these books, we had to wait to get our hands on them. They truly are great examples of children's literature. And all of these books led me to read more by the authors. Now, an elementary school librarian I know doesn't even want to buy the Newbery winner because the kids won't read them. Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! won in 2008 and no kids at this school want to read it. It's still a great book and is very useful for literature and drama classes; it definitely has merit. But is this the type of merit we want for a children's book award?

Most years when the awards are announced, I get disappointed. I think the Newbery Award is not doing its job when it comes down to representing the best of children's literature. Overall, the purpose should be to highlight the books children want to read, not the ones they should be reading. They can get those in their classrooms. In my class, we have to present at a children's literature conference on the award winners; many librarians come to these presentations and make a decision whether to buy these books based on the presentations. I would hope that at these presentations we would be able to highlight books that kids will love. Maybe I'm wrong, but I always thought that the point of these awards were to highlight great books for children. After all, we're just trying to get them to read something (and I'm not saying that Diary of a Wimpy Kid should win just because kids love it, I just think there should be a better compromise). I'm worried about the state of the Newbery Award. I trust it, as an adult, but that may not continue for long.

On ALA's website there's a quote from the Newbery committee chair, Cynthia Richey:

"Vanderpool illustrates the importance of stories as a way for children to understand the past, inform the present and provide hope for the future."

I can see Moon Over Manifest accomplishing this, but it seems like this is more directed at something teachers and educators would find useful over children. We in my class are having this same problem, while discussing the Newbery and Caldecott books, we keep talking about how they would work in shcools and in the classroom and we neglect to think about the appeal they would have in a public library sitting on a shelf. I understand the difficulty that comes along in this decision, but I think the Newbery Committees are losing sight of the ultimate goal, and I hope they can find their way back again soon, before everyone loses faith in their decisions.

There's an excellent article from School Library Journal here that talks about the Newbery Awards. It was written in 2008, but I think it still holds up today. My favorite quote:

"John Newbery, a highly successful publisher, believed that children’s books should offer readers delight and instruction in equal measure. So he searched for materials that would be both popular and profitable."

That is THE John Newbery.

Also, interesting point, 4 of the 5 Newbery books this year are historical fiction. Why? Thoughts?

x-posted to my book blog (which I may start using again)