Sunday, June 13, 2010

Newbery Medal Winners

Today I was startled to discover that I have read only ten of the 89 Newbery Medal-winning books. Ten! I am stunned. As a child I read a handful of them - but only a handful, clearly - and a few years ago while working at Borders I decided one of my life reading projects would be to read all of them. To that end, I acquired the first one, The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon (1922), which by the way is definitely one of my absolute favorites of the ten I have read (the other being Louis Sachar's Holes, 1999.) I read a couple more after that, too. And still - only ten?!

Clearly this Newbery-reading project deserves a little more time and attention from me.

How many have you read?

5 comments:

Megan said...

10 here, too, although I bet that I've read more and just can't formulate a more definitive memory of the plot or characters. But the ones I counted represent all of my most formative reading moments growing up.

Lauren said...

Another for 10, and I remember reading "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" many times. 10 more are those I remember shelving and thought "I should really read that..."

linda said...

Funny, I actually hesitated over The Witch of Blackbird Pond because I know I read it - I think I wrote a book report on it - but I can't remember one thing about it! There are so many on that list where I'm like - "really? I haven't read that? OMG I haven't read that! Why haven't I read that?"

EVERYONE should go read Holes and The Story of Mankind right now!

What's your must-read on the list?

Kim Diaz said...

I've got you all beat - I've only read four! Four! How positively awful! And I've got a copy of Holes that I've been meaning to read for some time now. I guess that's next.
"From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" - that was fun, from what I remember.

linda said...

I will never in my life forget the part of From..Files..Frankweiler when the one reassures the other, "Don't worry, we can just take a bath when we need more money!" I still think of it every time I see a fountain where people throw their coins away.