Comments on: Historical Fiction

By: Becky

Becky — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 05:54:24 +0000

As a child I was fascinated with historical fictions, and am still reading them as an adult- just finished reading a fantastic one tonight about ancient Egypt titled, “Shadow of the Sun” by Merrie P. Wycoff. I think you may be right- children tend to think about the plot itself rather than the history involved. However, I do have to say that for me, over time, I became interested in both. I love walking away from a good historical fiction feeling entertained, yet enlightened about the past.

http://merriepwycoff.com/about-the-book

By: Jonathan Hunt

Jonathan Hunt — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 18:18:15 +0000

FYI . . . JEPP has picked up a couple of late starred reviews, so it now has a total of three.

By: Wendy

Wendy — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:10:29 +0000

I was surprised to see that actually the official Scott O’Dell Award page has almost dropped Old World/New World already–it isn’t mentioned on the official nomination form. (The terminology is colonialist, and in my experience not widely used in academia for that reason–especially here where it would be inaccurate and, some might say, disrespectful to many of the cultures whose history is eligible.) http://www.scottodell.com/Pages/ScottO%27DellAwardforHistoricalFiction.aspx

By: Jonathan Hunt

Jonathan Hunt — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 22:04:15 +0000

I don’t mind the New World/Old World dichotomy.

Trivia question: How many continents are there?

Hint: The answer depends on where you were raised.

By: Roger Sutton

Roger Sutton — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 18:26:56 +0000

The “New World” phrasing in the O’Dell criteria was O’Dell’s and Zena Sutherland’s. I can ask TPTB if they are interested in changing it.

By: Jonathan Hunt

Jonathan Hunt — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 17:25:18 +0000

And I hasten to add that I was reading THE WICKED AND THE JUST to see if it needed to be one of our last couple shortlisted titles. It didn’t, and that’s the only reason I put it down, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not any less worthy than most of the titles proposed in this forum.

By: Nina Lindsay

Nina Lindsay — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:51:33 +0000

I’m still catching up on some of this reading; I’ll say that Jonathan reads my enthusiasm for WICKED AND JUST based on my Goodreads stars, where I grade on a curve. I just rated UNFORTUNATE SON the same. Both excellent in terms of being engaging reads, but both to me are a bit too flat and thin in literary chops for Newbery consideration.

By: Sondy

Sondy — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:52:22 +0000

Of all those, the only ones I’ve read were THE WICKED AND THE JUST and LIONS OF LITTLE ROCK. W&J was good, but kind of petered out for me.

At my last library, several classes had an assignment to read historical fiction once a year, so we did get that request. It usually was fairly easy to do, because there is a whole lot of historical fiction out there.

By: Sam Eddington

Sam Eddington — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 13:40:48 +0000

I thought CROW was amazing, and the best of this year’s crop of historical fiction novels that also involve Civil Rights issues. BREATHING ROOM remains one of my top-three books of the year, and if it takes the Scott O’Dell as a dark horse, I couldn’t be happier. Also, for a verse historical fiction novel that does its job very well indeed, I’d put forward THE WILD BOOK.

(SHADOW ON THE MOUNTAIN is sitting on my desk now, and I’m looking forward to reading it.)

By: Monica Edinger

Monica Edinger — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 09:00:59 +0000

One of my second round nominations was JEPP so yes, I’m enthusiastic! So glad Nancy is too.