Back in March of '07, I finally (at the age of 52) took a close look at the complete list of winners of the John Newbery Medal, awarded each year since 1922 to the author of "the most distinguished American children's book published the previous year." At the time, there were 86 books on the list, and I discovered that I had only read seven of them - the newest of said seven being forty years old. So I started reading....The winner is announced in January, so there are now 88 books on the list. A few days ago I finished reading The Grey King (the 1976 winner, by Susan Cooper), which brought my total up to 87. And there I was temporarily stuck, because none of the three libraries in our local library system holds a copy of the 88th book. I put in an ILL request last week, and waited to see if it would work.
And now I have, here on the table beside me, a copy of the 1940 winner - Daniel Boone, by James Daugherty. By the time I go to bed tonight, I expect to have finally finished reading all of the Newbery Medal books.
My thanks to the staff of the Beeghly Library, at Heidelberg College, Tiffin OH, whence this copy came!
1 comment:
Congrats, James! I had the same project going last summer, and I know I was sort of disappointed to find there were no fireworks when I finished the last book (mine was Caddie Woodlawn, which I'd been saving). You might be interested in my thoughts after I finished--I wrote three posts about it. You can click on the "Newbery" tag on my blog.
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