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1938

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

The White Stag by Kate Seredy (sixth-grade level).	The Medalist The author rewrites Hungarian history into a mythic archetype for the birth and survival of a nation. This is a bizarre work in which the author tries to make the founding of Hungary a mythic adventure that harkens back to Attila the Hun. The illustrations done by the author resemble Socialist Realism. Will have minimal appeal to kids, but will keep the grad students busy.
Pecos Bill by James Cloyd Bowman (Albert Whitman and Co., fifth-grade level). Out of print	Honor Book The author strings together all the tale tales about Pecos Bill into an extraordinary narrative. Bowman makes the connections between the outrageous stories of one of the great American legends. In the process he shows how cowboys used the stories to develop their own mythos and to explain natural features of the Southwest. Like a Saturday Night Live skit, though, this plays better in small doses. A feature movie it isn't.
Bright Island by Mabel Robinson (Random House, fifth-grade level). Out of print	Honor Book A fiercely independent Maine girl develops surprising social skills when she spend a year away from her island attending a prep school. Thankful is a wonderful role model even for modern girls. She is independent and strong and sees nothing wrong with being good at the things that boys enjoy. She wears her girlish charm with surprising grace, too. Robinson has created a portrait of a remarkable family that could be the prototype for the New England personality. The story has elements of a romance, but they are greatly subdued in light of Thankful's very vocal, one might say poetic, appreciation of her natural paradise. This, too, should not be out of print.
On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder (HarperCollins, $13.56, fifth-grade level).	Honor Book The first in Wilder's five-book Newbery series introduces readers to her family as it's constituted early on in their pioneering years. The Wilders' wagon rolls to a stop near Plum Creek, where they live for a few years, first in a sod house built into the bank and then later in a proper house constructed by dad. Hardship is never far away, but high spirits, stoicism and hard work keep disaster at bay. I read this book last, which may have been a mistake or a blessing. I know the end of the story, so to speak, and I know where fortune will take the Wilders. They remain true to themselves from  start to finish, which means their value system (honesty, hard work, belief in the goodness of God, family comes first, kindness to travelers) is firmly in place at Plum Creek. Wilder spends a little more time on description in this book than she does in the others, allowing readers get a feel for the flora, fauna and rhythm of the prairie. I was hoping she'd clear up some narrative loose ends (Mary's blindness, why they moved to Silver Lake, etc.) but I must have missed something. Nonetheless, this is a fair, if sluggish, introduction to the series that remains one of the most remarkable achievements in juvenile fiction. The other books in the series: These Happy Golden Years, Little Town on the Prairie, The Long Winter, By the Shores of Silver Lake.

Copyright David Ross 2003-2004