Newbery Medal 2008 Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village written by Laura Amy Schlitz illus. by Robert Byrd (Candlewick) review

Newbery Honor Books

• Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis (Scholastic) review
•The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt (Clarion) review
• Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson (Putnam) review

How the Horn Book reviewed the winners

Laura Amy Schlitz  Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village; illus. by Robert Byrd
     Candlewick
     Reviewed 11/07
Schlitz gives teachers a refreshing option for enhancing the study of the European Middle Ages: here are seventeen monologues and two dialogues that collectively create a portrait of life on an English manor in 1255. A plowboy, a knight's son, and a sniggler (eel-catcher), among other boys and girls ages ten to fifteen, say their pieces. Rhythm and style vary to suit each role, from breathless, thrusting phrases as a knight's son describes a boar hunt to the lighthearted rhyming of a shamelessly dishonest miller boy. Schlitz conveys information about class, attitudes, and social practices through the monologues, footnote-like sidebars, and six spreads titled "A Little Background" that offer fuller explanations of farming practices, the Crusades, falconry, and more. Schlitz acknowledges some of the nastier aspects of this oft-romanticized period (such as its persecution of Jews), but in gentle, moderate language. Byrd's pristine, elegant pen-and-ink illustrations in opulent colors make the book almost too visually appealing, belying the realistically dirty, stinky conditions described in the text. DEIRDRE F. BAKER

Christopher Paul Curtis Elijah of Buxton
          Scholastic
          Reviewed 11/07
The story of the Underground Railroad, which led escaping slaves to Canada, has been richly celebrated in fiction. But what happened after they arrived? In Elijah's story we visit the community of Buxton, a refuge for freed slaves established in 1849 in Canada West, close to the American border. Eleven-year-old Elijah, the first child to be born free in the settlement, is an irresistible character. Ebullient and compassionate, he is a talker who can torture a metaphor until it begs for mercy. Opening chapters lull and delight us with small-town pranks and tall tales. The mood gets chillier when a new family of fugitives arrives. Elijah relates how his Pa explains their fragility: "Don't no one get out of America without paying some terrible cost, without having something bad done permanent to 'em, without having something cut off of 'em or burnt into 'em or et up inside of 'em." When a con man takes off with the funds Elijah's friend Mr. Leroy saved to buy his family out of slavery, Elijah and Mr. Leroy pursue the thief across the border to Michigan; and there, while hiding out in a barn, Elijah discovers a small group of captured slaves, shackled to the wall, barely alive. There is no easy happy ending here, but, in a heart-rending scene, Elijah reacts with courtesy, courage, and respect, according the wretched their dignity and giving them the one gift of freedom in his power. This arresting, surprising novel of reluctant heroism is about nothing less than nobility. SARAH ELLIS

Gary D. Schmidt  The Wednesday Wars
      Clarion
      Reviewed 7/07
Entering seventh grade, Holling Hoodhood knows all about teachers. They're "born behind their desks, fully grown, with a red pen in their hand and ready to grade." And the worst of them hate your guts, which is precisely the way he believes Mrs. Baker feels about him. Every Wednesday afternoon, when the rest of his class leaves early to attend Hebrew school or catechism class, Holling, the lone Presbyterian, stays behind with Mrs. Baker. As Holling sees it, she uses the extra time for special torture, ranging from cleaning out rat cages to diagramming impossibly convoluted sentences to reading Shakespeare. That the two will grow to respect each other is a predictable trope, but the alliance nevertheless becomes convincing and winning. Insistently in the background is the Vietnam War: Mrs. Baker's husband is missing in action at Khesanh; the school's cook loses her husband in the conflict; the presence of a Vietnamese refugee in the class triggers hatred and bigotry. At home, Holling's sister supports the peace movement and women's rights; his father puts his architectural business above all; and his mother passively acquiesces to Mr. Hoodhood. Ultimately, Mrs. Baker steps out from behind her desk as a multilayered individual who helps Holling (often through their discussions of Shakespeare's plays) to dare to choose his own ending rather than follow the dictates of others. Schmidt rises above the novel's conventions to create memorable and believable characters. B.C.

Jacqueline Woodson  Feathers
      Putnam
      Reviewed 3/07
As sixth-grader Frannie puzzles over the meaning of a line from an Emily Dickinson poem, "Hope is the thing with feathers," lots of questions start coming up. What does the music her deaf brother hears sound like? Why is Mama so tired during the day? How come the new white boy in class named Jesus says he's not white, and could he possibly be the Jesus, as Frannie's friend Samantha thinks? How does it feel to have that kind of faith, anyway? Frannie eventually works out her own answers, finding hope not in Samantha's big miracles but in everyday bits of goodness-the "moments" her teacher tells her to write about. Woodson deftly, even lyrically, weaves some large ideas through her story, set in the 1970s during a snowy winter, but as in much of her work it's those small moments-sitting on Grandma's lap one afternoon watching the sky outside turn gray-that linger so profoundly. L.A.

2008 ALA awards