Tag Archives: Newbery Medal winners

Rereading Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes

(You can listen to this episode here.)

On this episode, we discuss Esther Forbes’ Newbery Medal-winning 1943 novel Johnny Tremain, the story of an apprentice silversmith in Boston who gets caught up in the events leading up to the American Revolution.

Mentioned on this episode:

Other books by Esther Forbes:

Paul Revere and the World He Lived In (1942), winner of the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for History.

The General’s Lady (1938)

Miss Marvel (1935)

Also mentioned:

The 1957 Disney movie adaptation of Johnny Tremain (trailer here)

Gadsby’s Tavern, in Alexandria, Virginia, which was built in 1770 and is now a museum and restaurant. Mary Grace went there with her sixth-grade class.

The Biggest Bear by Lynd Ward, illustrator of Johnny Tremain, which won the Caldecott Medal in 1953.

The American Antiquarian Society, of which Esther Forbes was the first woman member

Redcoat in Boston by Ann Finlayson

Recommended for fans of Johnny Tremain:

Mary Grace: Answering the Cry for Freedom: Stories of African Americans and the American Revolution by Gretchen Wolfe. (Deborah interviewed the author on her blog, Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb.) Mary Grace also mentions that there are several picture books about Revolutionary-Era African American scientist Benjamin Banneker. These include Dear Benjamin Banneker by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Brian Pinkney.

Deborah: The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare (1958)

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes mentioned:

Rereading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Rereading The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.

You can find Deborah at deborahkalb.com and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars

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(We made it through our backlog! There’s another episode coming on Thursday, December 12. You can listen to this episode here.)

On this episode, we reread Betsy Byars’ The Summer of the Swans, which won the 1971 Newbery Medal. It’s an evocative story of a 14-year-old girl who’s preoccupied with her big feet and her puce sneakers until the disappearance of her younger brother, who has an intellectual disability, forces her to look beyond her own adolescent thoughts.

Mentioned on the podcast:

The 1970 Kirkus Review review of the book

1971 Newbery Honor Book Enchantress from the Starsby Sylvia Louise Engdahl

Another 1970 book about an adolescent girl’s search for identity that, in Mary Grace’s opinion, should have won the Newbery: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret?.

Two post-Sumer of the Swans movies whose titles make startling appearances in the book: Bull Durham and Thelma and Louise.

Byar’s 1980 National Book Award winner The Night Swimmers

Byars’ 2020 New York Times obituary

Children’s Books and Their Creators by Anita Silvey

The 1974 afterschool special, which has appearances by two kids from The Brady Bunch but little else to recommend it.

Recommended for fans of The Summer of the Swans: The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers (Mary Grace), M.C. Higgins, the Great by Virginia Hamilton and Flight of the Doves by Walter Macken (Deborah).

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.

You can find Deborah’s author interviews on her blog, Books Q&A by Deborah Kalb, and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

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(We’ve been publishing episodes regularly but have gotten behind on the website, so we’re catching up. This episode was published on October 17. It was our Halloween episode but, with its colonial American setting, it makes a good Thanksgiving episode as well. You can listen to it here.)

In this episode, Mary Grace and Deborah discuss Elizabeth George Speare’s 1958 Newbery Medal winner The Witch of Blackbird Pond, about a girl, Kit, who’s struggling to fit in in a Puritan community in colonial Connecticut.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s 1953 play about the Salem witch trials, which was a commentary on McCarthyism.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Kit’s cousin Mercy has Beth-like qualities.

Kit’s childhood reading includes The Pilgrim’s Progress and The Tempest.

The Bronze Bow, Speare’s 1962 Newbery Medal winner about a Jewish boy living at the time of Christ who converts to Christianity.

Calico Captive, Speare’s first novel, published in 1957, based on a real-life story about a girl who was captured by Native Americans in 1794 and taken to Canada.

The Sign of the Beaver, Speare’s 1983 Newbery Honor book about a boy struggling to live on his own in eighteenth-century Maine.

Calico Bush, Rachel Lyman Field’s 1931 novel about a French girl who works as an indentured servant in colonial Maine.

Speare’s 1989 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award citation.

Commentary on thestorygraph.com by a contributor using the name books_n_pickles who talks about the “love hexagon” in the book.

Goodreads reviews of The Witch of Blackbird Pond.

Recommended for fans of The Witch of Blackbird Pond: Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (Deborah), Nightbirds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken (Mary Grace).

Other episodes mentioned:

Rereading Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken

Rereading Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.

You can find Deborah’s author interviews on her blog, Bo oks Q&A by Deborah Kalb, and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

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(You can read this episode here.)

On this episode, Deborah and Mary Grace read Carol Ryrie Brink’s 1935 Newbery Medal winner Caddie Woodlawn, which is based on Brink’s grandmother’s childhood adventures on the Wisconsin frontier.

Mentioned on this episode:

Caddie Woodlawn’s Family by Carol Ryrie Brink (previously titled Magical Melons) (1939)

Two Are Better Than One by Carol Ryrie Brink (1968)

Louly by Carol Ryrie Brink (1974)

Mary Grace mentioned what she thought were two different blog posts on a website about portrayals of American Indians in children’s books. Actually, it was just one post, here.

The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich (1999)

The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. You can listen to it on Buzzsprout here.

You can find Debby’s author interviews on her blog, Bo oks Q&A by Deborah Kalb, and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

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(You can listen to this episode here.)

On this episode, Mary Grace and Deborah reread Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 classic A Wrinkle in TIme, about…well, it’s hard to describe what it’s about. A troubled girl. A missing father. A genius brother. Three mysterious women. Interplanetary adventure. An evil, throbbing brain. None of this does justice to a book that two science fiction-hating girls ended up loving, and that their grown-up selves had a wonderful time returning to.

Here’s the original cover, which perfectly captures its Cold War atmosphere:

Mentioned on this episode:

Listening for Madeleine, Leonard Marcus’s book of interviews with people in L’Engle’s life.

Cynthia Zarin’s controversial 2004 New Yorker profile of L’Engle.

The ALA website listing the 100 most challenged books of the 1990s, with A Wrinkle in Time at #23.

The recent PEN America report on book banning in the United States.

A 2001 New York Times interview with L’Engle.

The trailer to the 2018 movie version of A Wrinkle in Time.

The Paris Review blog post where Mary Grace read that Madeleine L’Engle rewrote her novel A House Like a Lotus to give it a new protagonist.

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. You can listen to it on Buzzsprout here.

You can find Debby’s author interviews on her blog, Bo oks Q&A by Deborah Kalb, and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.