I confess I’m not altogether sure what I think of this book. I read it twice—once to myself and once to my daughter. She kept asking for another poem, so I’m assuming she liked it.

Or maybe she just liked the illustrations. Alice and Martin Provensen won a Caldecott Honor for their pictures for this book, whimsical gouache paintings that are perfectly suited to Willard’s fanciful, even nonsensical, poetry.

Some of the poems I liked a great deal—the rhythm and rhyme of them, the images and playful language. And paired with the Provensens’ illustrations, the whole effect is delightful.

Other poems just made me feel old, like I’d somehow missed or lost something. While reading “Blake’s Wonderful Car Delivers Us Wonderfully Well,” for instance, my daughter asked me, “Why are his suitcases purring?” And I had no idea.

“Maybe they’ve been turned into cats?” I said. But if that was the case, how could he wear them flat on his hat or served with mustard on a bun?

Clearly, my rational brain was working too hard. But what can I say? I’m fairly left-brained and I like being able to understand things, especially words, and when I can’t, it makes me feel incompetent, and there are few things in life I hate so much as feeling incompetent.

Which is why I left this book—both times—with a feeling of ambivalence.

I loved the idea of the book, based as it is on the poetry of William Blake and written as a sort of homage to his “Poems of Innocence and Experience.” I also loved the illustrations.

And I liked many of the poems (especially “William Blake’s Inn for Innocent and Experienced Travelers,” “The Wise Cow Enjoys a Cloud,” “Two Sunflowers Move into a Yellow Room,” and “Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way”).

But I came away wondering if there was something wrong with me, that I wasn’t able to get lost in the magic of this book. Perhaps I’m simply too experienced a traveler, and regardless of what the subtitle says, this inn is just for innocents.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (2010).

Fast-paced and intriguing but ultimately disappointing.

***

Holes by Louis Sachar (1999).

Brilliant. As a writer, I am wowed by Sachar’s ability to weave all his plot threads together in a way that is so utterly satisfying.

***

Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink (1936).

How children’s books have changed in the past 75 years! A delightful read, but more episodic than novelistic. (Be forewarned, though: even though Brink is trying to portray Native Americans in a positive light, some of her portrayals of native peoples will make you cringe.)

***

The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare (1962).

A great read anytime, but especially for Easter (and it’s still Easter, friends). A compelling story of hate, revenge, love, and forgiveness.

***

Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars (1971).

Fairly predictable, but captures the angst and irritability of becoming a teen. At the risk of sounding jaded, I think it won at least in part because the heroine has a developmentally disabled brother. I imagine that was fairly new territory for kids’ books back in 1970.

***

The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman (1996).
Beautiful, spare prose vividly evokes 14th century England. A coming of age story that is by turns poignant, sad, funny, and ultimately hopeful.

I read this book, which has no illustrations, to my 3-year-old daughter in one sitting. She kept asking for another chapter…and, no, it wasn’t bedtime or naptime. It was mid-morning, and she fell in love with this book.

Me, too.

I once heard Susan Patron, author of Newbery-winning The Higher Power of Lucky, speak at a conference, and she said the best piece of writing advice she’d ever received was to choose one book that she loved, a book she wished she had written, and type it up. She chose Sarah, Plain and Tall.

I can see why.

This is a nearly perfect book. (I’d say it is a perfect book, only I’m not sure there is such a thing.) I don’t think there’s a single misplaced word in the whole 58 pages. There’s certainly not a single misplaced image.

MacLachlan evokes her setting and characters clearly, simply, beautifully. She tells the reader almost nothing, and yet the pages are alive with the sights, sounds, and smells of a Midwestern farm in the mid-1800’s. They are alive with the feelings of the characters, even though emotions are almost never named. MacLachlan is a master of “show, don’t tell” and of “omit needless words.”

In the spirit of Susan Patron’s writing teacher, I thought I’d type up a few passages to share with you, so you can read for yourself some of this exquisite book (and so I can have these gorgeous words flow through my fingertips).

“I looked at the long dirt road that crawled across the plains, remembering the morning that Mama had died, cruel and sunny. They had come for her in a wagon and taken her away to be buried. And then the cousins and aunts and uncles had come and tried to fill up the house. But they couldn’t.”

“Sarah came in the spring. She came through green grass fields that bloomed Indian paintbrush, red and orange, and blue-eyed grass.”

“Matthew and Maggie came with their two children and a sack full of chickens. Maggie emptied the sack into the yard and three red banty chickens clucked and scattered. “They are for you,” she told Sarah. “For eating.” Sarah loved the chickens. She clucked back to them and fed them grain. They followed her, shuffling and scratching primly in the dirt. I knew they would not be for eating.”

“…at dawn there was the sudden sound of hail, like stones tossed against the barn. We stared out the window, watching the ice marbles bounce on the ground. And when it was over we opened the barn door and walked out into the early morning light. The hail crunched beneath our feet. It was white and gleaming for as far as we looked, like sun on glass. Like the sea.”

If you’ve not read this beautiful little gem of a book, I hope you will. Reading it is like finding a piece of perfectly smooth blue sea glass winking up at you from the sand.

3 Newbery books down; 86 to go. Next up: Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars (1971)

I am not sure Madeleine L’Engle’s book would have been published in today’s market. It starts very slow, taking three chapters to introduce all the main characters and raise a question: where is Meg’s father and why hasn’t he contacted them in over a year? The quest to find her father doesn’t begin till chapter four—page 56 in my version!

Now, I love this book, and I know the end is worth every word I read to get there. But someone who’s never read this book doesn’t know that. And from the (admittedly limited) feedback I’ve gotten about my novel, slow doesn’t hook. Of course, Madeleine L’Engle endured an entire decade of rejection when she tried to get A Wrinkle in Time published, so maybe slow didn’t hook in the 1950’s, either.

The thing is, I’m not sure how else she could have written the story. Dropping us into the middle of the quest to find Meg’s father might have worked to add more excitement right off the bat, but how to explain Calvin’s presence and Charles Wallace’s precociousness and the Missuses Whatsit, Who, and Which?

Some books are slow burners. They kindle a little interest at the beginning, introduce you to a character you want to know more about, raise a question or two that pique your interest. And then they slowly, slowly, flicker into flame until you get to the end, and there’s an enormous conflagration, and you realize with satisfaction that the fire started with that little spark and that it was, in fact, inevitable once the spark caught.

This is a book like that. It explores the nature of space and time and love and freedom, but it does so slowly, unfolding like a flower, at its own pace, in its own way. I like that—that it doesn’t try to be something it’s not (a fast-paced thriller, for instance), that it doesn’t conform to the “rules” that fiction is supposed to follow (there are, for example, several characters who make but one appearance in the story), that it, instead, reaches for something beyond those rules, for truth that can only be expressed in story, in this story, told this way.

Perhaps that is why this book ultimately won a Newbery—because it is true and beautiful and reminds us who we are and what we are capable of.

If you’ve not read this book and would like a free copy, I’m giving mine away. I warn you, though: it’s a mass market version that is hideously ugly in the way that only books printed in the 70’s can be. And it’s been well-loved (including a possible douse in the bathtub or some other body of water…). But it’s totally readable, and it’s free for the asking. Just leave a comment and Jack-the-random-number-generator will pick a winner. I’ll announce who it is next Tuesday.

2 Newbery books down; 87 to go. Next up: Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

If I ever have to go to the proverbial desert island, this book will be in the waterproof trunk I pack. I do not even know where to begin to explain to you why I love this book, why I think everyone should read it.

But I’ll try.

First, I love the story structure. The first half of the book is comprised of four first-person short stories, each narrated by a different character, held together by short (and I do mean short) chapters about a state academic competition.

As the stories unfold, you learn that these characters are all tied to one another, that they are all on the same team competing for the state championship, and that they all have the same “lesson” to learn, though in vastly different circumstances.

The second half of the book has an omniscient narrator who recounts the team’s journey from school champions to state champions.

I know, I know. I’ve made it sound rather boring. It’s not. Even though you know from the first page that this team makes it to the state meet, somehow the story of how they get there is still suspenseful. I’m not sure how Konigsburg pulls that one off, but she does it beautifully and brilliantly.

Second, I love the characters. These are the kinds of kids I hope my children grow up to be: kind and smart and courteous and loyal.

I also love seeing these characters from multiple perspectives. Each of The Souls (the team members) narrates one of the short stories, so as a reader, you get to hear their voice, their words, their view of the world. In the other Souls’ stories, you see them from a different perspective. In the omniscient narrator’s portion of the book, you see them from the perspective of their teacher and coach, Mrs. Olinski.

Speaking of Mrs. Olinski: she’s one of the main characters of the book and we see much of the competition story from her perspective—an interesting choice in a book for young adults. But her character arc is not unlike the children’s; she has similar challenges to face and choices to make, which makes her compelling and likeable, even if she is an adult and a teacher.

Third, I love the way Konigsburg ties all the characters and all the story lines together. This is not a collection of interlocking short stories. It is a novel (with, admittedly, a highly unusual structure) because of the overarching story arc about the state academic competition and because of the thematic ties between that story and each of the four short stories.

I suspect that in most writing workshops, this book would have been torn to shreds. It violates pretty much all of the so-called rules for writing contemporary novels, especially for children. Lots of point-of-view shifts. Lots of flashbacks in big chunks. Lots of skipping around in the story’s timeline. Lots of understatement. All of which are no-nos. And yet—it works. It’s hard to imagine it any other way. Part of what makes it compelling and beautiful is its structure, its omniscience, its suspenseful dropping of one story to pick up another before circling back to the first, and its understatement. Though the story is woven together tightly on a surface level, its thematic unity reinforces and deepens the oneness of all the disparate parts.

Finally, I love that this book makes me laugh and cry. I love that even though I’ve read it before, I’m still swept up into the story. And I love the feeling of all-rightness I have when I finish it.

1 Newbery down, 88 to go. Next up: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1963)

When I was pregnant with Jane, I was in contact with the man who is now my editor at IVP, revising my book proposal and hoping he would offer me a contract. And when Jane was three months old, he did.

This time around, though, I don’t have an editor looking at a book proposal. My editor looked at my proposal and passed. Not that I blame him, given the thus far dismal sales of my book. But I figure if someone who knows what a delight I am to work with (I meet my deadlines, I’m eager to please, I’m flexible and accommodating, and I (mostly) don’t need handholding)—if someone who’s worked with the amazing professional version of me doesn’t want my book, someone who doesn’t know me from Eve sure won’t.

And, I confess, I’m weary of rejection, and the thought of trying to create a compelling project that will appeal to enough people to sell well and to then shop it around to agents and/or editors and have it rejected again and again and again…I’m not sure I’m up for it, given my present state of physical and emotional fragility. Okay, so I’m not that fragile; I just hate feeling desperate, and with a looming August due date, I feel desperate to have something, anything, besides motherhood to define me.

So since I don’t have a book contract or even the possibility of a book contract at this point, I have decided to create my own project with deadlines, something to keep me focused, with a long enough time horizon that it will carry me through pregnancy and the post-partum hideousness that inevitably follows.

Hence my Newbery year. Or, rather, two.

Since fiction is my first love, and since I’ve written a young adult novel, and since well over half of my favorite books from 2009 were young adult novels, I’ve decided to challenge myself to read all the Newbery Medal winners.

For those of you who aren’t hip to children’s literature, the Newbery is probably the most prestigious award for young adult literature. It’s awarded every January for a book published the previous year. (This year’s winner, When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, was announced yesterday.) Books are chosen by a committee comprised of members of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). (How’d you like to announce that mouthful at the annual awards ceremony?)

My goal in reading all these books—and I’ve only read about a dozen of them, mostly as an adult—is to learn a little something about what makes a good book for children (since I apparently didn’t read good books when I was a child myself. What exactly was I reading anyway? Nancy Drew? Um, actually, yes, which probably explains a lot about me). Maybe I’ll even (re)gain a little confidence that my own novel is good—or learn why it’s not.

My deadline is to read all the Newbery winners by the end of 2011. Since the Newbery’s been awarded every year since 1922, that will be 89 books in 101 weeks, which means if I read a book a week, I can still go on vacation, get sick, have a baby, and take a maternity leave from this project.

So, starting (eek!) now, I’ll (try to) read one book per week and write a review of it here on my blog.

First up: The View From Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg (1997)

***

July 2010 update: due to the unexpected discovery, back in April, that we are having twins and all the additional complications that has created with my pregnancy and the extra energy an additional baby will require once these guys are born, I’ve decided to suspend my little Newbery project for the time being.