When Jonathan mentioned the seemingly mandatory “WTF” choice, I just assumed he meant what he says he meant: that one book that really does seem to pop up every year that nobody saw coming. In more *ahem* less colorful terms…the really really big surprise. Actually, whether or not I fully embrace the selection, I always appreciate the surprise picks because it shows the committee thinking outside of what may be many people’s horizon line or comfort zone. I think that many times though, people tend to have a muted or begrudging response to many of these books. My theory is that everyone gets all psyched up for what they think the frontrunners are every year and then when the committee does what it is supposed to do and comes to its own rigorously tested decision and it is completely different…people get let down. “I read all year and I didn’t read the winner?” Or their expectations get set subconsciously high because while all the other books were just being compared to “the other books that I am reading this year” the surprise pick is getting compared to “The Newbery Medal”, i.e. “this is now part of the gold standard and since it beat out my favorites to get there, it must be – had better be – amazing”. And I think that this goes for any type of book that comes under such an occurrence.

However, the committee was not seeing it that way. For them, it was also one of “the books that came out this year”. It clearly was not a dark horse to the committee, because it must have had a wide swath of support at some stage, or more likely most stages, of the game to be able to get a sizeable number of these well-read individuals to rank it as their favorite of the year, or at least top three. Among the books Jonathan mentioned was “The Higher Power of Lucky”, a left-field pick to beat all left-field picks for pretty much anyone who was not on the actual secret committee. Now, I was already psyched up about some candidates that year; I was fully behind our Mock’s top selections of “A Drowned Maiden’s Hair” and “A True and Faithful Narrative”, as well as my beloved Boston Globe-Horn Book winning “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane” (I still adore that book and have been so pleased to see it get more of an audience in the intervening years). However, I know some people do not agree, but I read “Lucky” after the announcement and found it unquestionably the most distinguished book that year. And I can defend that, though I have not actually read it since so details may be fuzzy. But another left-field puck that year – “Hattie Big Sky” – I honestly just have no clue what they were thinking. It had some strengths but also many obvious flaws (I wasn’t so high on “Rules” either, but really liked “Penny from Heaven”, so the choices overall could definitely have been better but also worse). But I do not need to know what they were thinking, apparently enough of them thought it to get the votes necessary. So I suppose much of the surprise factor can also be colored by our opinion as well as any measurable variable.

I think people can get a similar confused reaction when an unusual or more risky choice, the kind that Jonathan – and I also somewhat – likes to advocate, becomes the designated choice. Remember when “Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!” won and everyone was all in a hubbub? While that was not a left-field choice as buzz and reviews and been almost universally positive prior to the announcement, a lot of people were still surprised and there was a bit of backlash to that one as well. There shouldn’t have been either surprise or backlash as it was also, for me at least, definitely of the year’s most distinguished titles, so I wonder how much of that was because of people just getting sore that they had not given it due consideration prior, or if there was a good bit of not knowing how to deal with something more risky and unique involved, as Jonathan always implies.

Ultimately, shouldn’t we be rewarding originality and out-of-the-box-choices? Making everything a little more “individually distinct”, so to speak? Just musing here.

Although, one last thing. Although the crowning of “Hugo Cabret” was a shock at the time, in hindsight it really was not as big a stretch as people still believe. The committee was most probably using the same standard definition of a picture book that they always did – a book essentially composed half of visuals that play an integral role in defining, advancing, and deepening the story – which applies easily to “Hugo Cabret”. “Hugo Cabret” was just that basic definition at ten times the normal length. But yes, still a good example of an out-of-the-box choice that turned out oh so well.

I’ve already mentioned that I find the prose style of second person introduction to the Underworld to be written in a very distinguished style. But once we segue into the scenes with dialogue we shift from a more formal storytelling voice to a very colloquial one, a shift which at first struck me as jarring, but which on further consideration I find entirely appropriate. There is a measure of surprise and irony in this choice because we expect the gods and goddesses to speak in a more formal dialect, especially given the preceding tone. I quoted the lead in to the confrontation between Persephone and Demeter above, but here’s the rest of it . . .

PERSEPHONE: Mother.

DEMETER: Hmmm? What is it, my darling?

PERSEPHONE: I can’t believe you embarrassed me like that, Mother!

DEMETER: Embarrassed? I was only trying to protect you! You know how boys are.

PERSEPHONE: No I don’t, Mother! Because every time one of them tries to talk to me, you come and chase them away!

DEMETER: I’m only doing what’s best for you, Kore!

PERSEPHONE: *I! Don’t! Need you looking out for me! I’m not a little girl anymore!*

DEMETER: As long as your my daughter, I’ll–

PERSEPHONE: Maybe I don’t want to be your daughter anymore, huh, Mom?

DEMEMTER: You ungrateful *brat.*

PERSEPHONE: Just leave me alone and butt out of my life.

DEMETER: You just got your wish.

Demeter storms off and we have another mini-scene that leads into the abduction scene.

These words sound like real speech, selected, shaped and edited for dramatic purposes. They sound natural without sounding literary. Moreover, I think the choice to switch to this more colloquial voice for the scenes is a distinguished one because while this is Demeter and Persephone, some some version of these words has been spoken between many a mother and daughter, so much that these characters almost become archetypes or symbols in this story, lending the conflict a greater sense of immediacy and resonance. So, in this brief exchange of dialogue which flows back and forth quite naturally–point and counterpoint–we see the driving conflict of the plot laid out beautifuly, not to mention one of the central themes of the story, and both characters are delineated quite distinctly in the process. So I have to agree with Mark that we need to look and see not only what the words are, but how they are used in the story.

I’ve been reflecting on the use of dialogue in prose novels. I rarely hear dialogue being praised in a prose novel–and when it is praised, I don’t notice a consistent theme. But when people complain about dialogue they generally see it as an extension of character. If the dialogue sounds credible, the characterization is strong. If the dialogue doesn’t sound credible, then the characterization suffers. I think prose dialogue can serve many of the functions that dramatic dialogue does, but not necessarily and not to the same degree. It was probably a mistake to sample SPLENDORS AND GLOOMS and THREE TIMES LUCKY because I think some people perceive me as being negative about these books and perceived my use of them as attacks on them rather than a genuine comparison and contrast. I could have picked my favorite novels to date in NO CRYSTAL STAIR and LIAR & SPY, but they would have fared less well in the comparison because both books realy so heavily on an internal first person narration that the context of the quoted lines of dialogue would be completely lost. So I’m going to reiterate my general thesis: Dialogue in a dramatic context and dialgoue in a narrative context, stripped of their context, do not necessarily look much different in terms of quality, but they function very differently within their respective stories.

As I mentioned in my previous comment, I think HADES is worth exploring, but I don’t think it’s the strongest Newbery graphic novel candidate. I actually think it’s LITTLE WHITE DUCK which I wanted to discuss next, but the contentious tone of this thread is rapidly making me lose my appetite for doing so.

Wendy, I completely understand that you didn’t find the dialogue in those prose novels problematic and neither did I when I was reading them, but that is because I read them in the context of the rest of the narrative. In the context of the narrative, they *don’t* read as bad dialogue at all. It’s only when I artificially parse them out that they seem just as flat and uninspired as HADES. At least, to me. I know they still retain their sparkle and sizzle for you in that form, and I guess we’ll just have to disagree about our respective assessments of the dialogue above because they all seem cliched to me. The dialogue in HADES reads better in the context of the illustrations (although we can’t consider those illustrations), and even then I’m not sure if the dialogue rises to the heights that we need it to. I’m not sure that we disagree that the dialogue is the weakest link of the O’Connor, the question is how weak is it, and do the other distinguished elements compensate for it enough to justify a nomination for the book? Can’t it be one of the 45-60 books that we carry into the January meetings? I think I know your answer and probably Monica’s, too. Others?

I just don’t understand where you’re getting this from. When a standard novel has poor dialogue, or rather when I think it does, I call it out–that novel isn’t going to get Newbery championing from me. I would think the same is true of pretty much everyone. I don’t not notice poorly written dialogue just because it’s in a standard novel format.

I don’t think you’ve succeeded in making your case that the dialogue in THREE TIMES LUCKY or SPLENDORS AND GLOOMS is on a par with that in HADES. You’ve simply stated that you think it is. You asked Monica to back up the claim, but you haven’t really given any of us anything to argue against. Part of the trouble, I think, is that the dialogue in HADES is so clearly not as good that I don’t even know what to say. (And that is why it seems, at least to me, like a “tearing down of the prose novel”.) I can try, but I feel like I already know the points I’ll get back.

You say that the comic-book cliches aren’t any worse than the Southern cliches or the Victorian cliches. But what many people have found particularly notable about THREE TIMES LUCKY is that while it has Southern motifs and conventions, it is, specifically, not cliched. We find it has an authentic voice that means what could have been dull and tired reads, instead, fresh and new. Cliche implies a flattening and a lack of depth, and that’s just what I see in the above-quoted passage from HADES (and the rest of the dialogue in HADES)–and not in the other two books. I thought SPLENDORS AND GLOOMS had some cliche about the plot-points–ugly evil people, mysterious estates–but the writing is good enough that Schlitz made it work. (And as with HADES, some of that was probably intentional.)

The dialogue from HADES above is flat and reads like something I’ve read many times before; it reveals only the baldest things about the characters; does not hint at any further depth. On the other hand, the dialogue from THREE TIMES LUCKY introduces aspects of the characters that will be revealed later, gives us a sense of setting, introduces but does not establish a relationship. I could probably say the same about the excerpt from SPLENDORS AND GLOOMS. And I do think it means something that I want to read further into those novels and not into HADES, based on the excerpts. AND they sound like things people would actually say, unlike the HADES excerpt–that’s usually considered the hallmark of well-written dialogue.

When I read bits of dialogue in LITTLE WHITE DUCK, I wouldn’t say it excels (though the book is great, it’s because of the whole package), but I do think it’s more engagingly written. I don’t think it’s fair to put a “bias” against graphic novels in the same category as a bias against traditional literature or brief texts, since, as we’ve discussed, graphic novels don’t fit the criteria very well. On the other hand, if there’s a lot of distinguished traditional literature and brief-text books around and they aren’t getting recognized, that would be because of bias.

2. Alys, I didn’t intend a negative connotation for WTF at all, but rather a very *strong* reaction of surprise and puzzlement. So it was a poor choice of words on my part that I miscommunicated. As I said, books seem to surprise for one of two reasons–obscurity and unconventionality–but rarely, if ever, for both. Why does poetry and nonfiction need five or six stars, but novels only need one or two? I’m not begruding the obscure books, and I do applaud the committee for looking futher than the same two dozen books we seem to obsess over every year, but I just wish that privilege also extended to unconventional genres, too. TEMPLE GRANDIN is a perfect example of a one star nonfiction book that would fit as nicely in the Newbery canon as any one star novel.

3. Monica, you are the one who brazenly said the dialogue in the prose novels was superior–”I can find mediocre dialogue in the O’Connor and fabulous dialogue in both the Turnage and the Schlitz”–so if you don’t want to back your claim up, then I can only assume that I have correctly noted that the dialogue alone is roughly comparable even if the the holistic assessment of the prose novels may be superior. I never made the comparison to tear down the prose novels, but only to build up the graphic novel (if possible).

Remember that I said I’m only willing to judge a graphic novel text on the qualities pertinent to it, but that those qualities must match or exceed the qualities found in a prose novel. In the scenes, the dialogue is the only quality pertinent to the text so that is why I also isolated the dialogue in the prose novel. On doing so, I found the graphic novel was better than I expected and the prose novels worse. While I might say that this graphic novel is distinguished in spite of its dialogue, that is probably also true of most prose novels.

Another line of comparison is to compare the dialogue in HADES with the dialogue in DRAMA, LITTLE WHITE DUCK, and GIANTS BEWARE! LITTLE WHITE DUCK has a similar mix of dialogue and exposition (and we’ll discuss that next), but the other two are told largely through dialogue, and I think the textual evidence for excellence is even slighter in those books.

4. Aside from how HADES stacks up against the criteria, it is an unlikely Newbery choice because it suffers a triple bias: the bias against traditional literature, the bias against graphic novels, and the bias agains brief texts. We’ll discuss LITTLE WHITE DUCK next week and see if we like its chances any better. It’s a memoir instead of mythology, but those don’t get recognized with greater frequency either.

Are you saying that DARK EMPEROR or CLAUDETTE COLVIN were WTF books? Because I was under the impression that, with so many starred reviews, they were, in their own ways, frontrunners for award recognition as well. Certainly no one was shocked and appalled by their inclusion.