Module 4: Newbery Winners

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (Newbery, 2009)

Summary: An assassin slips into a house and kills all the members of a family except for a precocious toddler who escapes into a graveyard.  The toddler is given the Freedom of the Graveyard and is named Nobody Owens by the ghosts.  Eventually Nobody grows into a teenager and, after surviving several attacks, confronts the man, Jack, who tried to kill him.  In the end, Nobody wins and goes out to make his own life in the world.

My Impressions: I really liked this book.  It was fast paced and well crafted, and given that it was written by Neil Gaiman, I expected nothing less.  I have had many reluctant readers in my classes throughout the years, and this is a book that I can see recommending to them.  I loved both the illustrations in the book and the story itself; I found myself pulling for Silas and Bod and wishing at the end of the book that Bod’s Freedom of the Graveyard didn’t fade away once he was an adult.

Review: When a toddler fortuitously escapes the murder of his family by “the man Jack,” he is taken in by the ghostly denizens of a local graveyard, renamed Nobody Owens, and ushered through childhood by the kindly Mr. and Mrs. Owens and the enigmatic Silas. (As “Bod” soon learns, there are more kinds of people than just the living and the dead, and Silas falls outside those categories.) Growing up in this strange setting entails many adventures, from getting kidnapped by ghouls, to procuring a headstone for a shunned young woman who was “drownded and burnded” as a witch, to, most dangerous of all, attending school with other living children—all of which prepare Bod for a final showdown with the man Jack, who has never stopped hunting him. Lucid, evocative prose (“‘Look at him smile!’ said Mrs. Owens . . . and with one insubstantial hand she stroked the child’s sparse blond hair”) and dark fairytale motifs imbue the story with a dreamlike quality. Warmly rendered by the author, Bod’s ghostly extended family is lovably anachronistic; their mundane, old-fashioned quirks add cheerful color to a genuinely creepy backdrop. McKean’s occasional pages and spots of art enhance the otherworldly atmosphere with a flowing line, slightly skewed figures, and plenty of deep grays and blacks. Gaiman’s assured plotting is as bittersweet as it is action-filled—the ending, which is also a beginning, is an unexpected tearjerker—and makes this ghost-story-cum-coming-ofage-novel as readable as it is accomplished. - Claire E. Gross

Library Uses: I could see using this book and others that are similar around Halloween.  Teachers could bring their classes to the library and read a "teaser" excerpt from the books to get students interested in some of the "darker" books for the holiday.

References:

Gaiman, N. (2008). The graveyard book. New York City, New York: Harper Collins 

Gross, C. (2008). [Review of The Graveyard Book by N. Gaiman], Horn Book Magazine, 84 (6). Retrieved from http://archive.hbook.com/magazine/

Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois (Newbery, 1948)

Summary: Professor William Waterman Sherman retires from teaching and undertakes a balloon voyage to see the world.  He leaves from San Francisco but three weeks later he is found floating in the Atlantic Ocean.  After being rescued and taking a cross country train ride back to San Francisco, Professor Sherman recounts his story of ending up on the island of Krakatoa and his escape from the island just as the volcano was beginning to erupt.

My Impressions: Honestly, I wasn’t terribly impressed by this book.  I found its pace to be slow and overall rather unbelievable.  I realize that this was children’s book, but there were parts that simply didn’t make sense.  For example, a coworker and I tried to figure out how high Professor Sherman was flying if he was able to wash his clothes by tying them to a line and rinsing them in the ocean.  The height given was just a bit lower than the Empire State Building, which existed when the book was written. 

Additionally, I was surprised by the section at the beginning of the book regarding the cupola of the San Francisco Explorer’s Club landing on an Indian reservation.  I have many books that have parts that wouldn’t be described as being “politically correct” but they are very old (i.e. The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus from the late 1800’s); I guess I just wasn't expecting it in something as "new" as this Newbery winner.   

Review: McDonough narrates this broadly fantastical tale with deliberate, almost stately self-importance, an approach that suits both the main character, the stuffy Professor William Waterman Sherman, as well as the late nineteenth-century setting. Particularly noteworthy are his evocations of the wealth of details used to enrich the plot. Unskillful narrators and long descriptive passages are a combination that can easily create mind-drift in listeners, a problem that McDonough circumvents masterfully. His confidence in the inherent interest of these descriptive passages-which not only complement the drama of the adventure but also give substance and reality to the fantasy — is a testimonial to his skill and experience as a narrator. (review of the Audiobook)

Library Uses: This book could be tied into a class coming to visit the library by having view the illustrations, talk about the designs and idea of the hot air balloons, and then create their own hot air balloon models and displaying them around the library.  

References:

DuBois, W. (1948). The twenty-one balloons. New York City, New York: Penguin Group

[Review of The Twenty-One Balloons by W. DuBois] (1998). Horn Book Magazine 74(6). Retrieved from http://archive.hbook.com/magazine/