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Time-Traveling with the Newbery Awards: 1922-2005
By Michelle F. Bayuk
When I joined the Children's Book Council in October 2003, I decided I wanted and needed a broader perspective on children's literature. I had worked for numerous children's book publishers, had read thousands of children's books and likely tens of thousands of reviews, but I still felt that my reading had been limited, since I tended to read only the books from my current employer. So as I looked in wonder at the amazing CBC Examination Library, I thought, "I should read all the Newbery Medal Winners!" So, I took a Newbery bookmark from the supply room and after twenty months of reading (and a great deal of screaming, laughing, crying, smiling, and pinching myself awake) I did it. I started with Crispin: The Cross of Lead (2003 winner, Avi, Hyperion) and worked my way back in time (with brief stops to read The Tale of Despereaux (2004 winner, Kate DiCamillo, Candlewick) and Kira-Kira (2005 winner, Cynthia Kadohata, Atheneum). While I have certainly achieved the goal of becoming better read in children's literature, I did much more than that. I took a trip back to my own childhood (and to yours and to my parents' and to my grandparents' childhoods) by reading books.
For those of you who live in or have visited New York City, you know it takes quite a bit to grab attention of your fellow subway riders, but I had it as I screamed "All right!" as Kit in The Witch of Blackbird Pond (1959 winner, Elizabeth George Speare, Houghton Mifflin), recently dismissed as teacher of the Dame School for "playacting" the Bible, strode confidently and deliberately to the door of the man who had dismissed her.
Back along South Road Kit walked with a lightness and a freedom she had never known since the day she sailed into Saybrook Harbor. Hannah Tupper was far from being a witch, but certainly she had conjured away the rebellion that had been seething in the girl's mind for weeks. Only one thing must be done before Kit could truly be at peace, and without speaking a word Hannah had given her the strength to do it. Straight up Broad Street she walked, up the path to a square frame house, and knocked boldly on the door of Mr. Eleazer Kimberly.
I'm not sure I can fully explain that moment for me, sitting on a subway train on a dreary Monday morning. As an adult, I've always maintained that while reading had been the major influence of my childhood (next to some truly stupendous parenting), no one book had made a huge impact on my life. Perhaps Judy Blume or Carolyn Keene could be counted as my favorite authors, but certainly no single book had really influenced my worldview. But as I reread Kit's adventures, I came to realize that she embodied much of who I wanted to be when I grew up, indeed, who I still want to be: strong, intelligent, not afraid to make mistakes or to do what's right, sure to admit when I'm wrong, and most importantly, eager to meet people and accept them for who they are, not who other people tell me they are.
As you can probably tell, The Witch of Blackbird Pond was the biggest highlight of this Newbery expedition, but there were other high points as well. It was great to see that running away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art still seems as exciting and fun as it did when I was eight. I do, however, wonder if today's readers of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1968 winner, E. L. Konigsburg, Atheneum) are able to suspend their disbelief that two young children could make their way from Connecticut to New York City and hide in the museum for so long. Today's kids are more aware—as are today's museums—of electronic security systems, hidden cameras, and the like.
I'm glad I still felt shock and despair when Leslie dies in Bridge to Terebithia (1978 winner, Katherine Patterson, HarperCollins). Jess's thoughts and actions upon hearing of Leslie's accident hit me as hard as an adult and they did when I was nine.
Leslie—dead—girl friend—rope—broke—fell—you—you—you. The words exploded in his head like corn against the sides of a popper. God—dead—you—Leslie—dead—you. He ran until he was stumbling but he kept on, afraid to stop. Knowing somehow that running was the only thing that could keep Leslie from being dead. It was up to him. He had to keep going.
Any person reading these words in 1978, 2005, or even in 2028, will be as overwhelmed as I was in both 1979 and 2004. Losing the friendship, the person, and the connection to life that was Leslie, is almost harder on the reader than the protagonist.
I also enjoyed finding new books—new to me anyway. I saw a place and time, while written contemporarily, I doubt exists any longer in The Wheel on the School (1955 winner, Meindart DeJong, HarperCollins). I visited this little, little town in Holland with only six school children who still wear wooden shoes and whose fathers are still independent fisherman. These children decide to bring nesting storks back to their town and must spend considerable time, thought, and energy to do so, but they succeed—and bring the adults of the town, as well as the reader along with them.
Adam of the Road (1943 winner, Elizabeth Janet Gray, Viking) is a traditional journey tale through and through. From the moment Adam joined his minstrel father on a trek across thirteenth-century England, I became immersed in the travels, travails, and joys of this adventuresome young minstrel-to-be.
'My faith,' said Adam, 'look at the road.' It stretched ahead of them across a long, level field and up a hill so far away that the men and horses on it looked like chessmen. For the first time since they had started, Adam really knew that he was sitting behind Roger on a great war horse, with Nick at his heels and the world before him.
Adam often strikes out on his own, makes friends and enemies, and generally enjoys his trip around the English countryside and cities. It was a pleasure to travel with him.
Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze (1933 winner, Elizabeth Foreman Lewis, Holt) was very interesting, mostly because I kept expecting to read numerous and horribly racist statements or plot developments. Certainly, such things do exist in the text, but mostly in the ways the Young Fu deals with the world, both within and outside of the Chinese culture. There are white people, and some of them behave badly. There are Chinese people, and some of them behave badly. Young Fu learns from both the good people and the bad people he encounters, and I learned to love him for it.
While there are some older Newbery's that wouldn't take much rewriting to be completely viable today as new publications, others take quite a bit of salt (perhaps along with some rum and fruit juice) to be read with a straight face. Most Newbery books are still in print, some with additional or updated chapters, others not. As one would expect, concepts of racial and gender equality are seldom as prevalent as we of the twenty-first century would like. For instance, Hitty: Her First Hundred Years (1930 winner, Rachel Field , Simon & Schuster) is much-loved and adored throughout the world, but while I'll probably be hanged, drawn, and quartered for saying so, this book would have a hard time being published today. It's not just that today's editors shy away from animated and intelligent dolls, but she definitely has a rather unfortunate attitude towards the non-white people of her travels.
The babble of strange voices uttering heathenish gibberish above me only added to my misery and despair, though I strained with all my might to catch the sound of a familiar voice and words that I could understand. 'Lost in India,' I thought to myself, 'I, who have so miraculously survived the elements, not to mention those Island savages, to perish like this in a foreign land.'
I'm also still not clear why upon the moment of her creation she is fluent in English but can never learn any other language. It's not as if she learns English as a child does, she knows it instantly. I'd have made her instantly fluent in all languages myself, but then she'd have had to be culturally sensitive too. Of course, then the story itself would have been very different, and perhaps not as well loved.
Daniel Boone (1940 winner, James Daugherty, Viking) is fortunately out-of-print, but it was (and is) a real travesty that an apparently intelligent committee would choose a book of dubious scholarship and horrible insensitivity as something good for children to read. The book is racist, misogynistic, and quite frankly, not a work of nonfiction. It is the glorification of a man who, according to the author, never does anything wrong. When bad things happen to him (like losing his land—twice—because he fails to file the paperwork), it's not his fault. Daniel Boone, after all, is a man's man and a great hero. Why should he have to deal with little things like seeing to his own future? What is interesting is that the immediately proceeding Newbery winner is Thimble Summer (1939 winner, Elizabeth Enright, Holt) in which a girl acts with equality with the boys in the story. The book immediately following, Call It Courage (1941 winner, Armstrong Sperry, Simon & Schuster) is a fine attempt at presenting an island culture to a young audience. Given that the children's literature of the time was fairly progressive, we can't blame the pre-World War II isolationism or rhetoric for the committee's incongruous choice. Daniel Boone is both a travesty and a conundrum.
And as to that very first Newbery winner so many people warned me about, given the trepidation with which I approached it, I found it mostly amusing. In The Story of Mankind (1922 winner, Hendrik Willem van Loon, Liveright) the author attempts to give an overview of the entire history of the human race from "the first living cell" to the present (in the case of the revised edition I read, 1938). The author states as fact: Evolution, Moses, Jesus, Mohamed, Confucius, and Buddha. I'm not sure I've ever seen that before. I don't recommend reading the book, given the extremely white male centered text (savages are often coming out of caves to make jewelry for their women), but the author does make some great observations about numerous points in history (like the Sultan not signing The Holy Alliance because he'd never heard of it). It was also amusing to learn on page fourteen that during the last ice age, glaciers moved so swiftly into valleys that humans were often killed in their sleep. (I double-checked, the fastest-moving glaciers go about one inch per minute and are very loud. There would be more than enough time to outrun a glacier, even if you were sound asleep when it entered your village.) My final words on The Story of Mankind are "Reader Beware."
So, what about the last 20-25 years or so since I was a middle-grader? Well, my favorites from that period are Maniac Magee (1991 winner, Jerry Spinelli, Little, Brown) because I just wish I was as cool as that; The View from Saturday (1997 winner, E. L. Konigsburg, Atheneum) because I like to think I was as cool as that; and Holes (1999 winner, Louis Sachar, FSG) because it's so cool that a great adventure tale and a strong metaphor about the meaning of life can come together without being overly didactic or boring. As to those many classics I haven't mentioned, like Dear Mr. Henshaw (1984 winner, Beverly Cleary, HarperCollins), The Westing Game (1979 winner, Ellen Raskin, Dutton), A Wrinkle in Time (1963 winner, Madeleine L'Engle, FSG), and the myriad others that are read by kids around the world; I encourage everyone to read them for themselves.
What did I learn from these travels through time? Despite an obvious lack of cultural sensitivity in some of the books in the earlier years, it seems to me that the people who write, edit, publish, review, and purchase books for children have always (at least since 1922) wanted children to have a wide and varied experience of the world. Multiculturalism (although not called that at the time) was alive and well even in the earliest years of the award. Books like Tales from Silver Lands (1925 winner, Charles J. Finger, Doubleday), Gay-Neck (1928 winner, Dahn Gopal Mukerji, Dutton), and The Trumpeter of Krakow (1929 winner, Eric P. Kelly, Simon & Schuster) share other worlds with young American readers. I also found that the creators, editors, publishers, and reviewers of children's literature have also always considered the tastes of their young audiences. Books like The Dark Frigate (1924 winner, Charles Boardman Hawes, Little, Brown), King of the Wind (1949 winner, Marguerite Henry, Simon & Schuster), and The Hero and the Crown (1985 winner, Robin McKinley, Greenwillow) are all rip-roaring adventures and a lot of fun. At the end of my Newbery journey through time, what I find most interesting—and exciting—is that while not every Newbery book is a true classic, they each represent a point in time in children's literature, in American history and culture, and in the lives of children. I enjoyed visiting with these books, characters, times, and places; I can't wait to visit with quite a few more. •
Michelle F. Bayuk is the Marketing Director of the Children's Book Council, Inc. and has worked in children's book publishing for nearly fourteen years. She has her BA from Cornell University and her MBA from New York University Stern School of Business. She looks forward to picking her own favorite from the new crop of novels for children and wishes the 2006 Newbery Committee all the best in their overwhelming and near impossible task of having to name "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children" of 2005.
CBC Features:
The Fall 2005 issue of CBC Features focuses on Awards & Prizes. Articles from booksellers, librarians, and educators discuss the pros (and cons) of awards and best book lists for children and how they should be used to bring great books and children together. Award-winning authors Patricia and Fredrick McKissack contribute the Books Remembered article for this issue.
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CBC Features:
Awards & Prizes
The Fall 2005 issue of CBC Features focuses on Awards & Prizes. Articles from booksellers, librarians, and educators discuss the pros (and cons) of awards and best book lists for children and how they should be used to bring great books and children together. Award-winning authors Patricia and Fredrick McKissack contribute the Books Remembered article for this issue.
Past Perspectives:
Windows Into Their Lives: The Ninth Book of Junior Authors and Illustrators
Connie Rockman, June 2005
Editing Anthologies for Young People
Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, May 2005
A Place Where The Wind Is Not Howling
Carole D. Fiore, October 2004
Picture a Life: Picture Book Biographies
Megan Schliesman, November 2003
Reading Skills and Social Studies
Tarry Lindquist, September 2003
Writing Biography
Barbara Elleman, June 2003
The NY Times Best Illustrated Children's Book Award
Eden Ross Lipson, March 2003
Publishing Books for the Very Young
Bernette Ford, October 2002
Stories and Art
Allison Day, June 2002
Children's Books are Not Just for Children Anymore!
May 2002
Poetry and Literacy
Glenna Sloan, April 2002
Library Outreach to Hispanic Children
Maria Mena, March 2002
Choosing Award-winning Nonfiction Writing for Children: Three Perspectives
February 2002
View from the Riverbank
Martha Davis Beck, November 2001
Science, Trade Books, and Natural Curiosity
Christine Anne Royce, August 2001
No Laughing Matter
Michael Cart, May 2001
Historical Fiction
Oralee Kramer, February 2001
Coretta Scott King Award
Dr. Henrietta M. Smith, November 2000
Multicultural Literature as Curriculum
Myra Zarnowski, August 2000
Multicultural Book Publishing
Philip Lee, May 2000
Human Diversity Materials in the Public Library
Esther Pollock, February 2000
Windows into the World's Religions
Marsha Hutchins, November 1999
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