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 Masterpiece  Excellent  Very good  Good  Just okay  Not for me  Definitely not for me  | Have you read any of these? I love the Newberys but my library doesn’t have the winning title in yet. Newbery MedalMoon Over Manifest Newbery Honor BooksTurtle in Paradise Heart of a Samurai Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night One Crazy Summer
Wow!! Congrats to Neil Gaiman for winning the Newbery with The Graveyard Book. I’m shocked but very pleased!! See my review HERE.
2007, 81 pp.
Banished from his mouse community for fraternizing with humans (to borrow C.S. Lewis’s phrase), Despereaux is sent to the dungeon where it is assumed he will be eaten by the rats. Of course, he isn’t eaten by the rats, but while he’s in prison he learns of a rat’s plans to harm one of his beloved human friends, Princess Pea. His quest to save the Princess Pea forms the rest of the story, which I won’t spoil for you! This is a very charming fantasy tale that kept us truly entertained on our trip. It might be a little scary for those under 8 or so, though. I also recommend DiCamillo’s The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, which I read and enjoyed earlier this year. 2003, 272 pp. Newbery Award Rating: 4.5
When we meet Bud Caldwell, he is living in an orphanage in Flint, Michigan. Soon, though, we find him “on the lam” and in search of his father whom he has never met. He always carries his few belongings in a suitcase, and in the suitcase are clues his dead mother left behind about his father. Set during the Great Depression, this book is excellent for its historical value for children. Recommended. 1999, 245 pp. Newbery Rating: 4
2006, 134 pp. Newbery Medal Rating: 4 This book created a little controversy when it won the Newbery Medal because it contains the word ‘scrotum’ in relation to a snake bite on a dog. I’m almost conservative as they come, and I don’t see what the big deal is. I really liked this book and found it to be very charming. Lucky is a girl whose mother has died and who lives with a Frenchwoman. They live in the desert of California in a very small (population 43) community. Also in her life besides her French guardian Brigitte are Miles, a cute little boy whose favorite book is Are You My Mother?, and Lincoln, a boy her age who is obsessed with knot tying. These relationships and the longings of this little girl form the heart of the novel. I really cared about these characters and found myself rooting for all of them.
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, written by Clare Vanderpool
written by Jennifer L. Holm
written by Margi Preus
written by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Rick Allen
written by Rita Williams-Garcia
The 2008 Newbery award winner, Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!, is by Laura Amy Schlitz. The book is subtitled Voices from a Medieval Village, and contains points of view from the blacksmith’s daughter, the tanner’s son, the falconer’s son, the glassblower’s daughters, among many others. I didn’t like it at all at first, but by the time I got to the story about a shepherdess singing to a grieving ewe, I was enjoying it. The illustrations by Robert Byrd were excellent.
This is another Newbery winner that I listened to with my son on our road trip. We enjoyed this one even more than 
