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The Twenty-One Balloons
This was kind of a funny book. It kept my interest, and was definitely about ballooning, but I also felt that it was a lot more about Krakatoa than hot air balloons ( Read more... ) -
I want to be a Strawberry Girl!
I continue to be confused by what the Newbery committee is/was thinking and what they consider a level of appropriateness for children. I'm also surprised at what this author thought appropriate for children. I'm really of two minds on this, after reading about the author and this series. On the one hand, I love the idea of writing stories about ( Read more... ) -
Strawberry Girl ~ Lois Lenski
Charming in the order of Caddie Woodlawn or Thimble Summer. Birdie and the other characters are as complex as I'd expected. I enjoyed Lenski's description of the Florida backwoods. I appreciated "hearing" their speech and "seeing" their homes. In her foreward, Lenski mentions having visited Florida and spending time with the people she would write ( Read more... ) -
Rabbit Hill ~ Robert Lawson
This was a cute little story. Nothing too profound except the notion that wild animals won't dig up your garden if you leave a little food out for them every night. Who knows if that's true.
The characters were your basic one-dimensional cartoon-type animals, each with a certain emotion that mostly corresponded with the type of animal. Very ( Read more... ) -
I think little kids would love this one ...
Here's the review I put on GoodReads ( Read more... ) -
Johnny Tremain ~ Esther Forbes
Oh, so THAT'S why kids are still reading this Newbery Award winner from 1943: because it's awesome!
Out of all the Newbery Winners we've read thus far, this is most like the children's books that are being written now: it's a coming-of-age story that actually shows a boy coming-of-age. Johnny Tremain is a little punk at the beginning of his story. ( Read more... ) -
This made me feel so patriotic!
I hardly know where to start this review. Through the entire second half of the book, I had three thoughts in my head:
1. The Paul Revere poem
2. a song I learned (probably in elementary school) that Google failed to find for me. Some of the lyrics are for the Yankees fought from behind the shrubs, and the trees and the whitewashed fences. But ( Read more... ) -
Adam of the Road ~ Elizabeth Janet Gray
I liked this story. It was fun and sweet and scattered here and there with quaint observations and bits of wisdom.
For instance, give someone a gift when you won't be seeing them for awhile -- "It was easier to say goodbye when you had something to give."
Don't be afraid to laugh at yourself -- "For the first time in his life he had played the part ( Read more... ) -
Adam of the Road, or YAY 1943!
Now *here* is a Newbery I can embrace! First, it was more than a lame short story (I'm looking at you, Matchlock Gun). Second, it actually told me a bit -- quite a lot, actually -- about the times in which it was set ( Read more... ) -
The Matchlock Gun
It's weird - we're up to 1942 in "Read the Newberys", and it still feels like many of the books are written by people who have never written for children before, or in this case, who have a very weird sense of history and write based on assumptions with no actual research ( Read more... )