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

1957

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

Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorensen (Econo-Clad, $13.55, fourth-grade level). ISBN: 0808537938.	The Medalist   A 10-year-old girl watches her family regain its balance when they move back to the mother's ancestral home in the hills of Pennsylvania. Interesting look at the flora and fauna of Pennsylvania. However, the role model for girls is horrific. The girl is weak, cries, moans, etc. The boy is tough and strong. It stinks of horrible gender-casting.
Old Yeller by Fre Gipson (HarperCollins, $18.40, fourth-grade level). ISBN: 0060115459.	Honor Book A 14-year-old boy develops a close bond with a mangy but lovable stray dog, then mourns when he has to put it down when the dog becomes rabid. Heart-warming story about the relationship between a boy and his dog. Good details on frontier life in early Texas. Expect your readers to cry. The obvious pairing would be Shiloh, from 1992.
The House of Sixty Fathers by Meindert DeJong (HarperCollins, $15.89, fifth-grade level). ISBN: 0060214813.	Honor Book A Chinese boy has wild adventures while escaping the Japanese, aiding an American pilot, and looking for his family during World War II. Nicely told tale that opens a window on seldom viewed facet of WWII.
Mr. Justice Holmes by Clara Ingram Judson (Follet Publishing Group, fifth-grade level). LOC: 56-11218. Out of print	Honor Book The author provides a slim but mildly insightful biography of one of America's greatest jurists. I'm kind of put out that Judson spends more than a third of the book on Holmes' youth and far too little time on his career as a state and Supreme Court justice. He truly was one of the most important men in U.S. judicial history, but you don't know why. This reads like a rich boy's version of a Horatio Alger story.
The Corn Grows Ripe by Dorothy Rhoads (Peter Smith Publishing, $19, fourth-grade level). ISBN: 0844667560.	Honor Book A boy grows to manhood in rural Mexico while following the farming traditions of his Mayan ancestors. This is a great book for low readers in seventh-grade. Easy ties to the social studies curriculum as it focuses on the empires of Meso-America. This would pair well with Magic Maize.
The Black Fox of Lorne by Marguerite de Angeli (Doubleday, sixth-grade level). ISBN: 0385083009. Out of print	Honor Book Twin Viking boys from Denmark engage in a series of adventures in medieval England while avenging their father's death and searching for their long, lost mother. Wonderful historical background makes it a candidate for seventh-grade social studies units on medieval Europe. Some action sequences, but the sensibility is dated.

Copyright David Ross 2003