by Karen Cushman

I read this Newbery winner, too, though it wasn’t on my Sabbatical reading list. My bucket list for life includes reading every Newbery winner since 1922 when the award was founded, so this year has moved me well along that goal.

I liked this book a lot. A LOT, actually. I’d give it four out of five stars. If it hadn’t been a Newbery, I probably would have given it five stars.  I guess I have such HIGH expectations for a Newbery winner that anything less than beyond spectacular, it doesn’t thrill me as much. This one was spectacular, but comparable, I guess, to the also spectacular but not beyond spectacular Cross of Lead. GREAT details about the Middle ages here. WONDERFUL character–the young girl whom we love and root for without a speck of hesitation–and good conflict. What the character wants is obvious immediately and that need and desire only gets more fervent as time goes on. She grows immensely both in confidence and in abilities, and she earns the satisfaction at the end of the book.  So yes, I loved this book.

Still, it’s not my favorite, and probably not one I’ll read over and over, but definitely recommendable.

Here’s something I DO NOT UNDERSTAND: The number of Newbery winners that are historical fiction is quite high. The proportion, is actually astonishing since agents are afraid to take on historical fiction. I find it very weird indeed.  (10 of the last 15 winners are historical, if you count the 1960s as historical, which I believe we have to since The Viet Nam War is now history).

Can anyone help me with that issue?