2008 Newbery Medal and Honor Books

NEWBERY AWARD WINNER 2008






Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!


by Amy Schilitz








This interesting book is a compilation of 22 monologues set in 1255. The author is a librarian, who wrote these monologues for her students to perform. They extremely entertaining and very well written. The voices of these monologues are of young people who all live in a manor, there are about 23 characters. The monologues are written in old English and sound quite authentic. The illustrations add appeal to these stories especially for younger students. This is an excellent way to get adolescents interested in old English literature. I will definitely be adding this book to my library this upcoming school year.


NEWBERY HONOR BOOKS 2008





Feathers


by Jacquelin Woodson





The story takes place in 1971 in a predominantly black middle school. Franny lives in an area in the city that is deemed as the “wrong side” of the highway with her parents and older brother, Sean. The story begins as Franny ponders the quote, “Hope is the thing with Feathers”. This story truly follows the theme of that quote by Emily Dickinson. A new boy who is a lot paler than his peers comes to Franny’s school and sticks out like a sore thumb. He is not like the other children, not only is his complexion white, but he has a sense of calmness about him that is uncommon in an eleven year old. Speculations occur about his race and they nickname him, “Jesus Boy” due to his long hair, complexion and calm demeanor. Franny’s best friend Samantha, whose father is a Baptist Minister, begins to believe that he truly is Jesus. Towards the end of the story Jesus Boy ends up being just a regular child, but his mannerisms seem to influence the entire class even, the bully. This book is a beautiful story of growing up in a racially tense time in our nation’s past and tries to give the message of looking beyond skin color and other imperfections.
This book is really quick read and I truly believe that this novel can be used to evaluate characters and their emotions. The author does a wonderfully job of fully describing each of the main characters, especially Franny.





The Wednesday Wars
by Gary D. Schmidt

This book is a classic coming of age story about a young boy growing up in the late 1960's. There is so much turmoil going on in the world that Holling HoodHood lives in. The main character attends a school where most of the population is either Catholic or Jewish and must attend religious services every afternoon. Holling must stay with his teacher, Mrs. Baker during this time because he is Presbyterian. It is just he and she alone in the classroom trying to make time go by faster. At first it seems like Mrs. Baker doesn't care for the young boy, but as the plot progresses there is a bond brewing between them. She makes Holling memorize Shakespeare and tests him regularly on it. This book is a pretty good read and I think students would enjoy reading it. I do however believe, that this book would best be used as a class set so that the teacher may expand upon the era because some of it may be lost to children.