Home/Newbery by Year/Newbery Title Index/Newbery Subject Index/Newbery Author Index

1934

Editor's Note: Many of the books are out of print. The header information will be as complete as I can make it.

Invincible Lousia: The Story of the Author of the Little Women by Cornelia Meigs (Econo-Clad, $12.25, fifth-grade level). ISBN: 0833519824.	The Medalist A biography of Louisa May Alcott. Written almost like a romance novel. However, the novel contains a lot of U.S. literary history as well as political history. Meigs is a fair name-dropper, which is appropriate because the girls' father knew nearly every important American of his era. Good role mode for girls because of Louisa's high spirits and hard work ethic.
The Forgotten Daughter by Caroline Snedeker (Doubleday and Co, sixth-grade level). LOC: 66-13480. Out of print	Honor Book A Greek slave girl living in a villa far from the political upheaval in Republican Rome moves from the hovel to the master suite as she and those around her learn the truth of her birth and station in life. Chloe and the woman who protects her have been cast as slaves because of mistakes and lies. A remarkable turn of events clears her name and makes her the love interest of an ambitious young Roman exiled to a nearby villa. The course of true love can't be stayed for long, so every narrative twist ends neatly, happily. The first 25 pages or so are remarkably tedious because the author decided to use a clunky narrative device to tell the women's story in a hexameter beat that mimics the rhythm of Greek. From that point onward the story moves with great rapidity, driven by the changes of fortune all good melodrama thrives on. This is a book, were it still in print, I would use in the modern classroom. Snedeker does a marvelous job of explaining in simple language the great differences between the Greek and Roman world views. Her research is superb, allowing her to provide the reader with anecdotal facts (and the occasional direct address to make a point) that enliven the ancient world. Note: If you're looking for another Newbery that focuses on the Romans you could choose Elizabeth George Speare's The Bronze Bow. It's obvious that this book would also work well with The Winged Girl of Knossos, the review of which you'll find below.
Swords of Steel: The Story of a Gettysburg Boy by Elsie Singmaster/illustrated by David Hendrickson (Houghton Mifflin, sixth-grade level).. Out of print	Honor Book The Civil War battle of Gettysburg is seen through the eyes of a naive 14-year old boy who gets trapped in his own home, which becomes a field hospital for the Confederate Army. The story begins shortly before Lincoln's election when the winds of war are already howling, even over the quaint backwater of Gettysburg. Because the town is so close to Maryland the locals have become used to the intrusion of armed posses of Southerners who snatch blacks from the safety of Pennsylvania and drag them back to slavery. Young John reacts as a child to these and other events because his naiveté has been carefully crafted by his older sisters and his doting father and grandfather. John's father volunteers to fight once the war begins, causing a shift in the idyllic tone of the book. The dad's letters detail the horrible suffering created by the war. The famed battle of Gettysburg itself is told by Singmaster in almost documentary detachment, but she interweaves personal dramas that give the war a haunting face that's hard to ignore. Singmaster lived for a time in one of the houses featured in this novel. That intimate knowledge of the battlefield and the town of Gettysburg is evident on every page. The narrative has elements of melodrama, but they never rise to the top. This is a powerful document about the Civil War and would pair well The Red Badge of Courage. Other Newberys that focus on the Civil War: Railroad to Freedom: A Story of the Civil War, Rifles for Watie, The Perilous Road, and Across Five Aprils.
The ABC Bunny by Wanda Gag/illustrated by Howard Gag (Scholastic, paperback, second-grade level). Out of print	Honor Book A bunny has bunny-like adventures in an ABC book. By modern standards this would never make it for Newbery consideration because it's a picture book. The illustrations greatly date it, too. It is remarkably similar in style and quality to Gag's other Newbery honoree, Millions of Cats.
The Winged Girl of Knossos by Erick Berry (D. Appleton-Century Company, sixth-grade level). Out of print	Honor Book The author breaks from mythic tradition while telling the tale of Daedelus and his escapades at Knossos. In the preface Berry remarks that no one, despite intense  literary and archaeological effort, knows how much reality lies behind the story of Daedelus, the Labyrinth and his efforts to build pre-da Vinci wings and escape imprisonment. I much prefer Berry's version, which has aged absurdly well and has no business being out of print. His Daidalos, as he spells the name, is a cynical man much revered by kings for his inventions. He is equally feared by the ignorant populace, who cower at the sight of his tradition-busting inventions. This Daidalos is free of an idiot son, too. In the place of Icarus stands Inas, a daughter, who is as liberated a woman as the ancient world could ever have wanted. She is athletic, confident, brave and bold. She knows her place and refuses to accept it. The story debunks the hallowed reputation of early Greece. I found the description of a boorish, uneducated Theseus especially entertaining. If some publisher wants to do modern readers, especially middle school language arts/social studies teachers, a favor, please bring this marvelous book back into print.
New Land by Sarah Lindsay Schmidt/illustrated by Frank Dobias (McBridge, sixth-grade level).. Out of print	Honor Book A family led by a downtrodden dad gains self-respect by working day and night to convert a rundown claim in Wyoming into a respectable farm during the Great Depression. The family, really, is led by 17-year-old Sayre, one in a long line of spunky Newbery heroines. She is well aware of the weakness of her dad and her twin brother, who shares some of her fire and a little of the dad's hopelessness. Sayre conspires with several supportive people in the community to bring her dream of respectability to fruition by working behind the scenes to buck up her dad and brother. Her task is made more difficult by the smooth-operator who dominates the town and attempts, surreptitiously, to drive everyone else out of business. What a marvelous book. It could do battle with the more famous Little House of the Prairie books and come away a victor. Schmidt never directly addresses the larger political climate that causes rural crisis, but it surely operates in the background and explains the despair found in the common farmer. Her characterizations are fully fleshed out. We understand not only the motivations and emotions of the downtrodden Morgan family but also the Hoskins clan that attempts to control the town. If this book were still in print I would use it as the literature piece in my 1930s units on American history. For high school. Publishers would be doing teachers and students a favor if they brought it back into print.
Big Tree of Bunlahy: Stories of My Own Countryside by Padraic Colum (Macmillan Company, sixth-grade level). Out of print	Honor Book Colum relates a few more tales from his native Ireland. This material did not age well. The story frame is almost incomprehensible to modern readers, as is much of his prose. However, once, if, you can get past these minor problems you'll encounter a couple of truly interesting tales. This is hard copy for the oral tradition, minus the blarney.
Glory of the Seas by Agnes Hewes (Knopf, seventh-grade level). Out of print	Honor Book A young man working for a merchant house in 1855 Boston is caught up in the fever over the hunt for wealth and the growing conflict between the North and the South. Young John must contend with the usual trials of expressing his love to a girl and choosing a career. He is an unwilling participant in a plan to assist slaves who are escaping from their Southern owners. This is one of the most difficult books I've ever read, mainly because the author has the annoying habit of writing page after page of dialogue. Nearly the entire story is told in dialogue, which makes for much confusion. Also, the first 100 pages appear to be about the growing trade between the Boston-New York rivalry and the boomtown of San Francisco. The second two-thirds focuses on the Fugitive Slave Law and the multifaceted conflict between the South and North. Hewes provides about 30 pages worth of information. Readers who have the patience to wade through the melodramatic nonsense will learn a few nuggets about the era. Note: A good companion piece would be Carry On, Mr. Bowditch. The two books create decidedly different views of Bowditch. Also, Cornelia Meigs' Clearing Weather would tie in well, too.
The Apprentice of Florence by Ann D.  Kyle/illustrated by Erick Berry (Houghton Mifflin, seventh-grade level).. Out of print	Honor Book A teen-age boy sets off to find news of his seafaring father, who disappeared from their Tuscan farm in search of adventure in the mid-1400s. Neno has a chance encounter along the road to Florence, meeting a young woman whose family shapes his life in ways he could never have expected. Neno's honesty and work ethic earn him a place among the graces of the Florentine power structure, who send him to Constantinople just as the Turks are set to make their historic conquest. Neno is buffeted about by the forces of history yet always manages to do the right thing and win friends among the powerful. He eventually returns to Florence, where the mystery of his father's disappearance is solved. Despite the strong melodramatic elements of the story (sometimes Kyle seems to be creating a Tuscan Horatio Alger) this is a powerful, interesting book. The author has a flair for description and obviously prepared for this work with much research. She provides a few moments of meditation on the nature of power (we see the Medici's in a less than flattering light) and the gray divide between good and evil. The chapters she devotes to the fall of Constantinople provided me with much insight into the historical processes that drove the event. She plays with historic foreshadowing, too, laying down a possible connection between Neno's father and Christopher Columbus. Add this novel to my list of Newbery's that should not be out of print.

Copyright David Ross 2002-2004