Favorite Newbery Winners

I wasn't planning on doing a My Favorite Things post this week, but when given inspiration for a perfect topic I will take it. Plus I'm sick this week. Really sick. Going to bed at 8 every night sick. Not much reading has been happening and I'm running out of stockpiled reviews to post. So this was excellent timing. (I now have antibiotics and will hopefully be pulling out of this funk soon.)

In that article I linked to up there Jonathan at Heavy Medal makes some very interesting points. I like the points he is making and agree with them. I like the little exercise he provided for everyone more and that is what I'm running with, and for the purposes of this post will play by his rules (mostly). Meaning I will stick to the last 50 years of Newbery Winners. For the purposes of full disclosure I have only read 30 of the 50 titles.

Here are my Top 4 Picks (because I couldn't decide on which book to give the #5 slot) :

Rounding out the Top 10 I would choose: From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, The High King, Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, The View From Saturday, The Tale of Despereaux, The Graveyard Book

Here is where I blaze my own trail. Let's see how adding in the Honor books, still only looking at the last 50 years, shakes things up. Here are the top contenders (this time there are 5):

Adding the Honors changes the remaining Top 10 to: From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, The High King, Walk Two Moons, The View From Saturday, The Wednesday Wars, The Graveyard Book

That was a lot harder than I originally thought it would be. What are your top choices? Complete list of winners can be found here.

Comments

Wendy said…

I want to know which winner it is that you hate so much!

October 28, 2011 at 12:04 PM

Brandy said…

Wendy, I see you saw my comment at HM too. :)

That winner would be the Hero and the Crown.

And if you want to know why, I'm more than happy to rant:
I felt the pacing was off and the character development less than stellar. Then I had to blink at the whole time travel element which I don't think was necessary. But the book nearly went air born when the Mage guy (Luthe-right? See I tried to block his name) delivered what has to be one of the cheesiest lines man ever came up with to get a girl in his bed and the heroine swooned at his feet. So much for girl power. Then they traveled at a less than fast pace to the battle so they could enjoy their sexy times. No big deal, people were only dying there. Then at the end Aerin is basically thinking "thank goodness the supernatural immortal part of me is pretty much asleep so later on I might not have to remember the torture of this dull life with this man who adores me and sacrificed so much for me and I can go back to enjoying the sexy times with the hot magic man." I was thoroughly disgusted. She was just as selfish and self centered at the end as she was at the beginning. What was the point????

October 28, 2011 at 1:37 PM

April said…

Not as hard for me because I've only read about 1/3 of them.

1. A Wrinkle In Time
2. Holes
3. Jacob Have I Loved
4. The Graveyard Book

I also do not have 5! I haven't yet read The Westing Game and Walk Two Moons...WTM is coming up soon though.

October 31, 2011 at 1:07 AM

Brandy said…

Oh April both are so good. But I don't know how reading WTM while pregnant will go for you. Mmmmm...maybe you should wait. (Makes mental note to tell you this next time we talk.)

October 31, 2011 at 8:10 PM

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