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I'm going to read all the Newbery Medal winners and Honor Books, and liveblog them and/or write reviews of them. At least, that's the idea.

Rated G for language, if not for themes; there are some pretty messy books on this list! :D

Disclaimer: The Newbery Medal and all related names and trademarks belong to the American Library Association. No infringement is intended.

About commenting: OpenID commenting is turned on. Anonymous commenting is on but screened, to discourage trolls and spammers. IP address tracking is on. If your comment includes material you can reasonably expect to be upsetting or triggering, please put a warning in your header.

This is intended to be a QUILTBAG-friendly, feminist-friendly, anti-cissexism, anti-racism, anti-classism, anti-ableism blog. That said, I am a fairly sheltered American white man of Northwest European racial extraction and fundamentalist Christian upbringing (homeschooled for purer ideology ;P), so if I say anything offensive, PLEASE CALL ME OUT if you feel up to it.

This blog's language is G-rated, but its themes include sex, violence, and oppression. I will always use a cut with a trigger warning for racist/sexist/otherwise offensive language, for any discussion or depiction of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse/assault, self-harm, eating disorders, drug use, or PTSD, and for the comfort of people with various common phobias or squicks (emetophobia, creepy-crawlies, injury/amputation, embarrassment squick, anything else I think of at the time). If you have something you'd like me to warn for, please speak up. If I did not put a cut over something you find upsetting or triggery, please speak up if you are able to do so, and I will cut it, no questions asked.

All polite discussion is welcome. Feel free to contradict or argue with any of my opinions! :D Do not use offensive language about or to anyone. Do not tell me "it's just a book" or any other form of Stop Critiquing Things.

No comment is too long or too short. "You need to google [search term] before you talk any more about [topic]" is just as acceptable / awesome as a three-page essay on the history of interracial marriage or second-wave feminism. "101-type" questions are welcome; you will receive a warning if I think these veer into trolling. Do not link people to "Let Me Google That For You" or any site with the same intent; I consider this intellectual snobbery, unkindness, and borderline derailing, and all such comments will be deleted.

Correcting my spelling, grammar, formatting, or vocabulary is very welcome.

Other people blogging about various Newberys, and related links:

* My hearty thanks go to the Celebration of Women Writers at University of Pennsylvania's website for hosting several out-of-print Newbery Honor Books not otherwise readily available. Ditto for the ever-wonderful Project Gutenberg.

* Laura's Life is a young girl's blog; she read all the Newbery Medal winners between second and fifth grades, and reviewed each one. Reliable verdict on what one particular "modern kid" actually thought of each book. ;-)

* Bookin' It has a Newbery tag in progress with extremely well-researched and thinky, well-considered reviews.

* Old & New Berries is a two-person blog featuring brief, thoughtful reviews of Newbery Medalists and Honor Books.

* The Nerdbery Project is a collaborative effort by a lot of people to read all the Newbery Medal winners and tweet / blog about them, started by Mr. Schu Reads in January 2012.

* NewberyMaster is a table by year of all the Newbery medalists and Honor Books to 2007, with publication info and brief reviews. Very useful to anyone trying to hunt down a specific book from the list.

* The Newbery Project covers winners only, but they have multiple volunteer reviewers giving several different sets of opinions on the books (including at least one audiobook version). A fascinating resource, and I really wish they hadn't misspelled their URL. ;-)

* Six Boxes of Books, a blog by three sisters, has a Newbery tag and a three-part essay on Newbery winners by the sister who read them all. (She didn't include Newbery Honor Books and doesn't plan to.)

* The 90-Second Newbery Film Festival (founded 2011) is a contest to make irreverent 90-seconds-or-less dramatizations of Newbery winners and honor books. It specifically welcomes entries that "mess with their subjects". Claymation, shadow puppets, Halo machinima, and live-action examples are shown in the post. Their next deadline is in December 2013.