Newbery Challenge

I know most of you are probably way ahead of me, but I've set myself the goal to read every Newbery Medal and Honor book. Care to join me? For those of you who've already done it, want to do it again?

Use the tag "Newbery Challenge" to note which ones you've read.

Complete List of Newbery Medal Winners
Complete List of Newbery Honor Books

Fill us in on how you're progressing...

I'm working on this, too. Well, actually I'm planning on doing this, I'm a bit busy with college and the 50 Book Challenge right now. Have you heard of www.listsofbests.com? They have the complete lists of Newbery Medal Winners and Honors there, and I use it to check off the ones I've read.

I know how you feel -- I'm also in school and doing the 50 Book Challenge. I'm always biting off more than I can chew! I figure I can read one per week right now and a whole bunch of them this summer.

Yeah, I'm on listsofbests, but I'm not thrilled with it -- I'm too particular about having the right cover art / dvd case art / album art !

I have all the Newbery Medal books cataloged in LT (many under "wishlist"), so someone could just use my library to generate a list. I haven't entered all the Honor books yet.

My first thought was "OMG you own ALL the NM books?!" followed by jealousy, until I read the part about them being under Wishlist. I'm thinking of putting them on my Amazon wishlist, and then I can read them as holidays come around and I get them as gifts. :)

I'm working on owning them all! I've bought about 20 in the last 2 weeks. I LOVE the Goodwill!

Psierut not only seems to own all the Newbery Medal & Honor books -- they are all FIRST EDITIONS. Now you have someone to be jealous of! ;-)

They are all wonderful books. I've probably read about 20 plus and own more than that. I also have many of the Newbery Honor books. A Single Shard was excellent. Of the Newbery Honor books, I can highly recommend "Al Capone Does My Shirts" about a family living on Alcatraz. We selected it for a competition this year among several schools. It was the favorite book of the 10 books selected.

I just have to say this, I have read most of them once and they are wonderful, but I can only take so many dog dying stories in one year.

That's hillarious (not in a hahaha way, but in an ironic way) -- I guess that's why Gordon Korman wrote No More Dead Dogs!

This sounds like fun. I worked my way through a lot of the medal winners in 5th grade (the teacher gave us some sort of challenge) but that was a long time ago. Unfortunately, I have so little time to read for myself these days that I'm only reading a couple of YA titles a month. I've actually been thinking of working my way through Caldecott medal and honor books (more useful for the mother of a toddler)

I'm reading the latest The Higher Power of Lucky now and wanted to try to get to as many Newberry Books as I can.

I'm new to Library Thing and this is my first time checking out the groups. So I need to play around to get the ones I've read tagged.

I look forward to sharing thoughts on these books!

svnopa

Sigh, I was already working my way through the Carnegie medal winners, and now I have another list full to tackle! Still, it means you never have that, "what shall I read next, there's nothing I fancy" moment at the library!

Jennie

I keep watching for people using the tag "Newbery Challenge" -- so far I'm still the only one! :-(

Remember to use the tag for the Newbery Medal and Honor books you've read...

and I'll keep watching!

(I've only read 4 this year -- I'm not expecting this to be a race to the finish)

My Newbery books are tagged "newbery medal" and "newbery honor", I haven't tagged anything challenge. I think I'll go ahead and do that.

I tagged the Newberys I've read. Although I just realized I spelled it wrong (Newberry) and have to go back to correct.

I just finished The Higher Power of Lucky and really enjoyed it. I was drawn to the cover and the story lived up to the image of wonder and strength.

Not sure what I'll read next - I'm kind of in the mood for a little sci-fi/fantasy. Maybe in anticipation of the the big Harry Potter release in July.

In addition to my regular tags, I'm tagging "Newbery Challenge" for this challenge. Sort of like you tag your books "50 Book Challenge" for that challenge, even though your books are already tagged whatever you've tagged them...that way, if someone does a search for the tag "Newbery Challenge", everyone involved in the challenge will be on the list of tag users.

I started reading The Giver yesterday. I read it a few years ago but decided I needed a refresher if I wanted to include it in my "Newbery Challenge"

The Giver was the YA Lit Group's book for March (March? maybe Feb?).

I had never read it before...enjoyed it but found the end abrupt and unsatisfying. Let us know what you think of it this time around...

I'm not sure how I feel about The Higher Power of Lucky - having just finished listening to the audio book. I had come to think of Newbery Award winners as something special. This was the impression I had gotten from reading The Whipping Boy, The Midwife's Apprentice, and Holes. There is something about the Newbery stories that you can't predict, that will surprise you. Instead, I found Lucky predictable. I did like the bit where Miles pulled something positive out of his mother being in jail. Otherwise, I kept thinking, with a sigh, she's going to run away, she's going to run away, oh man she's going to pick the dust storm to run away in and she's packed a can of beans and no can opener, oh now Miles is going to run away and they're all going to end up in the dugouts, why is she running away into a dust storm and who visits a spot in a totally different hemisphere and only brings one dress?
Maybe I just didn't fantasize about running away when I was a child (the one time my mother thought I had disappeared, I had gone to take a nap in my room on my bed) and now as an adult all I can think of is that it will encourage kids to run away to get attention. If someone held me each night before bed when I was a child, I would take that as a sure-fire sign they were fond of me. Lucky is an idiot.
Read some other great Newberys, like A year down yonder - almost as good as Peck's A long way from Chicago (which is hard to beat with that story "Shotgun Cheatham's Last Night Above Ground" to start it off!) I wish I could grow up to be Grandma Dowdle. In The midwife's apprentice I was amazed that the apprentice actually returned to the midwife. Who these days would swallow their pride and go back to someone they thought they hated for further education? You could see this young woman growing into adulthood.
Often a Newbery book is something that I think I wouldn't really want to read , like Out of the Dust. What? Read a whole novel in verse? You must be out of your - oh! I say, this is quite good! Fancy that! I put off Holes for a long time thinking, "Ewww, a boy book!" But it had something for absolutely everyone in it. You could have knocked me down with an apostrophe when the warden turned out to be ... well, read it yourself.
The only regrets I have about Holes is that it knocked The Watsons go to Birmingham 1963 out of getting the Newbery. Sure, Curtis got the Newbery the next year for Bud not Buddy, but that didn't have the visceral power of TWGTB. Curtis was just playin' with us in that one. Fun, fun, fun, laughter, laughter ... watch out, they're on their way to Birmingham - something awful might happen to them on the way! No? Oh, okay - fun, fun, fun - look out! Oh, here's the danger: the woolpooh! Phew! He's got me so worried about this family and they're just - and then: WHAM! I closed the book on my thumb and turned it to look at the front cover. Just an Honor!? What are these people playing at on that committee? What justification do they have for passing this over? What on earth ... oh, Holes. Never mind.
This year must have been a thin one for Newbery nominees.
I think I'll go read Rules by Cynthia Lord.

marfita: great post! I have to read TWGTB next!

I read many of the Newbery Medal books years ago (I think our 5th grade teacher gave us double credit for reading Newbery books) but have not kept up. I reread A Wrinkle in Time some time in the last year and have been working my way through the rest of the Time Quartet and Austin novels. Thanks to marfita for her comments, this might get me to pick up a more current Newbery book!

#19 - pdxwoman, stop! you'll just encourage me. Also, just finished Rules which had me boo-hoo-hooing all over it. A bit manipulative, but hit a chord in me.

I didn't care that much for the Higher Power of Lucky. It almost became a chore to read. I loved the Watson's Go to Birmingham 1963 & totally agree with you. It should have received the Newbery Medal.

I finished The Giver about a week ago but haven't been online much to write about it. I had read it years ago and this was a refresher. I actually listened to the audiobook.

I can understand people having a problem with the abrupt ending. Since reading it about 10 years ago, I've thought of reading Gathering Blue and the latest (I forget the title), but now I kind of like the way The Giver ended and I think I just want to leave it that way in my mind.

Since I read it both times as an adult, I'd actually like to hear impressions from teenagers after reading it.

I'm not sure what my next Newbery will be. I'm taking a children's lit class over the summer and Tale of Despereaux is on the reading list. My reluctance to start it has lead me to realize that I don't really like the "animal" themed independent reader books. I'm sure I'll enjoy it once I start it, but I'm just not drawn to the animal books as much as other.

I don't think Gathering Blue and the other (which I also can't remember) are *sequels*... I think they are just other books about the same world (maybe not even that same town). Anyone know for sure?

yes, The Giver is first in the series, Gathering Blue is second, and Messenger is third. they are in the same world, but in different towns.

i totally agree, lehack... Al Capone Does My Shirts is absolutely the best. it really leaves you wondering at the end.

has anybody read The Egypt Game? I've considered reading it, but i'm not sure how good it is.

#23 Please see my reviews on Gathering Blue and Messenger in my 50 books challenge post. I really enjoyed The Giver but found the sequels to be a waste of time compared to it. Messenger was especially painful to read. They are short reads however. I think I finished both in the same day.

i've been collecting books with newberry medals on it. so far, my most favorite is olive's ocean because the main character's experiences captures what she wants in her story.

there are so many books to read! so little time... and money. ;)

Reading all the Newbery Medal books was a challenge I set up for myself when I was around 8-years-old. At this point I've read a lot of the Newbery books, but not all of them, because I stopped trying to read all of them at around the age of 14 (and I feel I should mention here that I'm currently 18)

I still own 26 Newbery Medal and 26 Newbery Honor books & have them catalogued on LT.

#30 That's a terrific challenge you've set up for yourself. I hope you continue it someday.

Hi
This is a fantastic goal! Last month, I just finished reading my last newberry winner, and am finishing the honors now. Maybe we can discuss some of our favorites, and least favorites.

#32 Congrats! I hope to someday follow in your footsteps.

take your time; the key is to read a variety between each one so that you can still talk with adults! :-)

Hi-

I've been reading the Newbery list for about 3 years now- I keep getting sidetracked by other books but I've been working on it pretty consistently. It takes a lonnnng time but is worth it. I've read books I never would have chosen on my own and enjoyed them immensely.

I would have a hard time listing my favorites because there are so many great ones but I can certainly list a few of my least favorites. Bear in mind that I still have about 40 honor books to read and 2 medal books (Smoky the Cowhorse and The History of Mankind- I just can't seem to make myself pick these up!)

My least favorite are: Gay Neck, the Story of a Pigeon (words fail me); Dobry (most exciting event was grandfather waiting for the trained bear to come to town to give him a backrub!); Audubon (I will never voluntarily read another description of a bird in my life); Nicholas: A Manhattan Christmas Story (I thought I would love this but it was unreadable); and Invincible Louisa (expected to really like this one, found it hard to get through).

Do you have a least favorite list?

NEW GROUP!

I've started a group for folks interested in the Newbery Challenge...

http://www.librarything.com/groups/newberychallenge

Hope to see you there!