This one’s obviously not finished yet, but you can find the most recent Newbery honor books below. I’ll link to any reviews I’ve written, as well. Asterics indicate books I’ve read for my personal Newbery challenge but not reviewed. 2014 Doll Bones, by Holly Black. The Year of Billy Miller, by Kevin Henkes. One Came […]
Trusted: Dragons’ Trust Book 1, by Krista Wayment
Another dragon book. That was my rather reluctant thought when I picked this one up. There are a lot of dragon books out there, more than I realized when I wrote my own. But I’d been told this one was good… I liked it more than Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, the dragonesque Newbery […]
Ragesong: Awakening, by J. R. Simmons
I love surprises. I especially love good surprises. And I really, really like it when that good surprise turns out to be only the first of several. That’s the case for Awakening. I loved the book, and it’s the first of a series. Book two, Uprising, just released in June. I’m getting it. Since I’ve […]
Lost in the Bayou, by Cornell DeVille
I love this cover. It sucked me in immediately. I’ve always liked survival stories, and this one looked intriguing. Whoa! It got intense in a hurry. Andy and Robin are orphans, or so everyone “official” is telling them, even though the bodies of their parents have not been found. It’s a new role for them […]
Dream Warriors (Joey Cola, 1), by D. Robert Pease
I loved Noah Zarc, Mr. Pease’s MG trilogy. And I enjoyed his recent grown up fantasy, Shadow Swarm. But this is his best book yet. Just as Noah was a loose parody of the Bible story, so Joey has similarities to the biblical story of Joseph. If you’re familiar with those old favorites, I’ll let […]
Navigating Early, by Clare Vanderpool
This is a strange book, one that has beautiful moments I’ve come to associate with Clare Vanderpool, but it doesn’t always resonate with me. At times, the book even feels over-written and abstract with images that are too great a stretch. And I struggled to get a handle on Early. Early Auden is a young […]
Splendors and Glooms, by Laura Amy Schlitz
I liked this book far more than the cover and title made me think I would. (The title comes from an old Percy Shelley poem, which is not my forte, and the cover is downright creepy.) I grabbed it simply because it took Newbery honors last year, and when it comes to the Newbery award, […]
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin
This was a sweet little story that took Newbery honors a few years ago. Minli lives in a small, poor village in ancient Asia with her Ma, who has become bitter at their poverty, and Ba (father), who tells stories to lighten it. After a visit by a traveling peddler, Minli sets out to change […]
Flora and Ulysses, by Kate DiCamillo
This is not my favorite work by DiCamillo. It often seemed silly and repetitive, annoying even. I certainly would not have awarded it a Newbery. But by the end, it had a sweetness to it, a completeness. A feel-good-ness. Ulysses is a squirrel that was accidently vacuumed up by Mrs. Tootie Tickham. After receiving CPR, […]
Struggling Readers
As I’m preparing for the upcoming homeschool year, I’m going to take a break from book reviews to touch on a related literary subject–struggling readers. I have one of these. In fact, I have two. The younger one is a typical boy who’d rather spend time outside and therefore commits way less than his full […]