Comments on: Why I do this

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 14:35:26 +0000

Has anyone had a chance to read the ARC of Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea. It should be on people’s radar.

By: C.

C. — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 19:41:46 +0000

Has anyone else read ‘A Nest for Celeste’ by Henry Cole.

Might be a bit young for Newbery but it my favorite so far this year. It’s a lovely story with a smart and gentle heroine.

It is heavily illustrated though. Maybe another crossover from Newbery to Caldecott or there and back again?

By: Sondy

Sondy — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 02:37:29 +0000

I’m really enjoying the sense that there are other people out there who are as nutty and serious about children’s books as I am. And we can seriously discuss what makes a great children’s book — with actual examples in front of us that we have read.

And people who can help me put my finger on WHY. When I read ONE CRAZY SUMMER, I thought that book is Newbery material. Why? It’s going to be fun to explore, and fun to find out if it struck other people the same way.

Also a lot of fun to hear about what new books (like KEEPER) I really should read.

By: Jen Baker

Jen Baker — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 00:01:48 +0000

Hmmm. I didn’t get to read When You Reach Me until this summer and I have to admit, having read so much about how so many people loved it means I still don’t have a good handle on how I feel about it. Going into the reading I tried to manage my expectations, but given the overall love I think it would have needed to hold the secret of how to end world hunger to keep it from falling a little flat. This was also one of the first times I noticed how hard it was to try and separate my personal reaction from how I felt a kid might react to the book. I can’t imagine how much the actual committee members must second, third and fourth guess their reactions.

By: Wendy

Wendy — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 23:43:13 +0000

I think it’s interesting that several people have commented that all the discussion last year supposedly turned When You Reach Me’s win into a yawn. I don’t think it was so much the discussion as that WYRM was pretty plainly the best book of the year. If anything, I think the talk about WYRM just made people contrary. I remain extremely puzzled by anyone who says the book “doesn’t seem like Newbery quality” (and I’ve yet to hear any really well-reasoned or well-written explanation; contrariness is my only explanation). I can understand that some felt other books might have been better, or that it didn’t quite live up to the love of people like me, but to say that it isn’t Newbery quality at all seems frankly strange.

It’ll be fun, this year, with less consensus at the outset. I thought at first that we were going to have a repeat performance with One Crazy Summer, but that doesn’t seem to be getting quite the level of praise that WYRM did.