Is the Newbery Award (gulp) a deterrent?
The Washington Post posits that theory in an article today. Reporter Valerie Strauss writes:
The Newbery Medal has been the gold standard in children’s literature for more than eight decades. On the January day when the annual winner is announced, bookstores nationwide sell out, libraries clamor for copies and teachers add the work to lesson plans.
Now the literary world is debating the Newbery’s value, asking whether the books that have won recently are so complicated and inaccessible to most children that they are effectively turning off kids to reading. Of the 25 winners and runners-up chosen from 2000 to 2005, four of the books deal with death, six with the absence of one or both parents and four with such mental challenges as autism. Most of the rest deal with tough social issues.
An article in October’s School Library Journal — “Has the Newbery Lost Its Way?” by children’s literary expert Anita Silvey — touched off the debate, now in full bloom on blogs and in e-mails. It is the new flashpoint in the struggle to draw children into the delicious world of books at a time when theNational Endowment for the Arts says fewer Americans are choosing to read than they did 20 years ago, risking social and economic consequences.
The organization that awards the Newbery — and several other book prizes, including the Caldecott Medal for best American picture book for children — defends its methods and its record.
“The criterion has never been popularity,” said Pat Scales, president of the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association. “It is about literary quality. We don’t expect every child to like every book. How many adults have read all the Pulitzer Prize-winning books and the National Book Award winners and liked every one?”
I have to admit that the recent Newbery books haven’t been very elementary-friendly, whereas the Caldecott books are beloved. What’s your experience?�
January 12th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
So glad to hear someone of “authority” voice this opinion. I haven’t purchased the last 3 Newbery winners (not honor books) for the simple reason that I know my audience and I know they won’t read them. My elementary school is in a blue collar neighborhood and I think The Tale of Despereaux was the last great Newbery winner that appealed to my students. Getting them to read a Newbery winner is like pulling teeth. The majority of the books simply do not “speak” to them.
I think both the Newberry and Caldecott committee members are out of touch with what kids find interesting today. I know this is not the purpose of the awards but hey, who are they writing the books for anyway? Maybe if we had a few more active school librarians on the committee, the quality books with more appeal would be nominated.