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readallthenewberys2017-10-28 03:24 am
justice_turtle) wrote in readallthenewberys2017-10-28 03:24 am
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The 1930 Newberys Summary Post
Took me long enough, but I have defeated 1930. :D
* The Tangle-Coated Horse and Other Tales: Episodes from the Fionn Saga by Ella Young got five stars from me. It does what it says on the tin, and it's goddamn brilliant -- I was most struck by the use of language, which is spectacular and magnificent and perfect. This ought to be in every school library, like Charlotte's Web or The Wheel on the School; instead, because there is no justice, it's long out of print and incredibly difficult to find. :P
* I also gave non-Newbery-nominee The Funny Thing by Wanda Gág five stars. It's more of a mock pre-Caldecott than a mock Newbery, I think; the art is what really makes the story, although Gág's knack for fairytale-esque narration is not to be sneezed at.
* 1930's Newbery winner, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field, got four stars from me. This story of a little wooden doll carved in 1829 is genuine Literature. I docked it a point because I'm rather dubious about Ms Field's choice to have Hitty encounter those particular African-American character types during her stint in the Deep South, but... it really is Literature, still and all. For all I wish Tangle-Coated Horse had taken the Newbery, I cannot blame the librarians for giving it to Hitty; they knew a classic when they saw one.
* Little Blacknose by Hildegarde Hoyt Swift also got four stars from me. It's the story of the Dewitt Clinton steam locomotive, told from its own point of view and slightly fictionalized (the real Dewitt Clinton locomotive was scrapped after two years of service). I docked it one star for its slow start and the use of spelled out "Negro dialect" in one place, but it's a charming little book which made me care ridiculously much about its titular hero. Also out of print, which I can kind of understand, but... *indistinct noises* I just get really cranky that that Orientalist heap of shit Shen of the Sea is still in print and acclaimed while equally charming, much less racist books are not. :P
* I gave Vaino: A Boy of New Finland by Julia Davis Adams one star. In retrospect, I'm not sure why. Maybe because it wasn't as downright appalling as The Old Tobacco Shop, still the nadir of Newberys? Vaino is a badly-written, simplistic frame story about the Finnish Civil War, laced around a middling translation of the Kalevala because the author couldn't sell the translation on its own. I didn't finish it. Not recommended.
* Pran of Albania by Elizabeth Cleveland Miller also got one star, because the research and use of language really were good, but it would've gotten another star if it had let its heroine have agency at the climactic point of the story -- which would have been a really simple edit! -- and it would've gotten ALL the stars if it had been a less aggressively heteronormative take on the Albanian sworn virgin thing. :P
* A Daughter of the Seine: The Life of Madame Roland by Jeanette Eaton probably should have had a star for the research into pre-Revolution Parisian geography, but dear god, the woman did not know when to SHUT UP! Also, it was written in an incredibly patronizing tone, she mangled the hell out of the political situation, she told me with a straight face that Louis XVI's problem was he didn't feel superior to his subjects (?!?!?!?!?), and she had her heroine give a rousing speech about the importance of the Republic to fucking Straw Robespierre. That was where I gave up. O_O I'm so deeply not looking forward to her biography of George Washington, some years down the line.
* And finally, The Jumping-Off Place by Marian Hurd McNeely took zero stars because it made me so goddamn angry. It was a terrible, simplistic, contrived, classist, anti-feminist, victim-blaming, suspenseless book that claimed to be about the South Dakota prairie and was not. I wanted to punch it in the face, except it was a free ebook and punching screens in the face is a bad idea, so I didn't. :P
Er. Ahem. Conclusion: I once again couldn't decide which book to give the mock Newbery to, so I gave it jointly to Hitty and The Tangle-Coated Horse, because they both really genuinely deserved it. :D
* The Tangle-Coated Horse and Other Tales: Episodes from the Fionn Saga by Ella Young got five stars from me. It does what it says on the tin, and it's goddamn brilliant -- I was most struck by the use of language, which is spectacular and magnificent and perfect. This ought to be in every school library, like Charlotte's Web or The Wheel on the School; instead, because there is no justice, it's long out of print and incredibly difficult to find. :P
* I also gave non-Newbery-nominee The Funny Thing by Wanda Gág five stars. It's more of a mock pre-Caldecott than a mock Newbery, I think; the art is what really makes the story, although Gág's knack for fairytale-esque narration is not to be sneezed at.
* 1930's Newbery winner, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field, got four stars from me. This story of a little wooden doll carved in 1829 is genuine Literature. I docked it a point because I'm rather dubious about Ms Field's choice to have Hitty encounter those particular African-American character types during her stint in the Deep South, but... it really is Literature, still and all. For all I wish Tangle-Coated Horse had taken the Newbery, I cannot blame the librarians for giving it to Hitty; they knew a classic when they saw one.
* Little Blacknose by Hildegarde Hoyt Swift also got four stars from me. It's the story of the Dewitt Clinton steam locomotive, told from its own point of view and slightly fictionalized (the real Dewitt Clinton locomotive was scrapped after two years of service). I docked it one star for its slow start and the use of spelled out "Negro dialect" in one place, but it's a charming little book which made me care ridiculously much about its titular hero. Also out of print, which I can kind of understand, but... *indistinct noises* I just get really cranky that that Orientalist heap of shit Shen of the Sea is still in print and acclaimed while equally charming, much less racist books are not. :P
* I gave Vaino: A Boy of New Finland by Julia Davis Adams one star. In retrospect, I'm not sure why. Maybe because it wasn't as downright appalling as The Old Tobacco Shop, still the nadir of Newberys? Vaino is a badly-written, simplistic frame story about the Finnish Civil War, laced around a middling translation of the Kalevala because the author couldn't sell the translation on its own. I didn't finish it. Not recommended.
* Pran of Albania by Elizabeth Cleveland Miller also got one star, because the research and use of language really were good, but it would've gotten another star if it had let its heroine have agency at the climactic point of the story -- which would have been a really simple edit! -- and it would've gotten ALL the stars if it had been a less aggressively heteronormative take on the Albanian sworn virgin thing. :P
* A Daughter of the Seine: The Life of Madame Roland by Jeanette Eaton probably should have had a star for the research into pre-Revolution Parisian geography, but dear god, the woman did not know when to SHUT UP! Also, it was written in an incredibly patronizing tone, she mangled the hell out of the political situation, she told me with a straight face that Louis XVI's problem was he didn't feel superior to his subjects (?!?!?!?!?), and she had her heroine give a rousing speech about the importance of the Republic to fucking Straw Robespierre. That was where I gave up. O_O I'm so deeply not looking forward to her biography of George Washington, some years down the line.
* And finally, The Jumping-Off Place by Marian Hurd McNeely took zero stars because it made me so goddamn angry. It was a terrible, simplistic, contrived, classist, anti-feminist, victim-blaming, suspenseless book that claimed to be about the South Dakota prairie and was not. I wanted to punch it in the face, except it was a free ebook and punching screens in the face is a bad idea, so I didn't. :P
Er. Ahem. Conclusion: I once again couldn't decide which book to give the mock Newbery to, so I gave it jointly to Hitty and The Tangle-Coated Horse, because they both really genuinely deserved it. :D