1945 Newbery Medal and Honor Books

Rabbit Hill

By: Robert Lawson

Medal Winner
NOT REVIEWED

This is a humorous, kindly and lively tale, with the most beautiful drawings Robert Lawson ever has made. It could come only from a long and intimate understanding, a partnership, really, with rabbits and moles, field mice and skunks and all the other small creatures whose lives are so involved with the humans in their neighborhood. Rabbit Hill—the philosophy of live and let live in an irresistible package.

The drawings are hand in glove with the text. Little Georgie's leaps across the Connecticut fields give one a new vision of that countryside more beautiful than ever before—Porkey, at the door of his burrow, establishes the proprietary rights of all the Little Animals to their homes—Uncle Analdas, disinterested but debonair—Mr. Muldoon, solemnly aloof—the gathering along the road to see the New Folks' arrival, where every shrub and rock and tree hides a Little Animal. It's just a perfect combination.

From the dust jacket

Abraham Lincoln's World

By: Genevieve Foster

Honor

Reviewed by: Sandy Hall

Many children's history stories and books delve deep into a person's life or an important event, but Genevieve Foster in this book instead takes a "slice" of history and explores what was happening across the globe during the life span of Abraham Lincoln. Who else was alive when Lincoln was born? Which Frenchman served macaroni to an Egyptian prince while Lincoln kept his store in Illinois? Which famous book  about slavery was written when Lincoln was a lawyer? Why was Hans Christian Andersen too sad to write during Lincoln's years as President? Often when studying the life of an important historic person, we don't even know what else was going on in the world at the same time. Foster's book gives an extensive look at events and people across the globe that occurred at the same time. Fascinating! The writing is narrative, and the book is illustrated by Foster in black line drawings. I highly recommend all of Foster's books like this. She also authored shortened versions for younger readers such as 1861: Year of Lincoln. Some of Foster's books have been reprinted, thankfully. Enjoy history from this "horizontal" perspective! 

The Hundred Dresses

By: Eleanor Estes
Illustrated by: Louis Slobodkin

Honor

Reviewed by: Sherry Early
Recommended age: Age 6+
Also read and recommended by: Deanna Knoll, Diane Pendergraft, Lara Lleverino, Sandy Hall, Sarah Kim, Tanya Arnold, Terri Shown

Wanda Petronski, a Polish girl in a Connecticut school, is ridiculed by her classmates for insisting that she has one hundred beautiful dresses at home when everyone can see that she wears the same old, faded dress every day. Since bullying is the topic du jour these days in children’s books and school assemblies, a retrieval of this classic story about Polish immigrant Wanda Petronski and her encounters with the girls of Room 13 would certainly remind us that the problem of the strong pushing around the weak is not a new one. And the story gives some keys to the solutions: empathy developed by understanding, distance sometimes, and inner strength. Art helps, too.

Lone Journey: The Life of Roger Williams

By: Jeanette Eaton
Illustrated by: Woodi Ishmael

Honor

Reviewed by: Sherry Early
Recommended age: 11+
Also read and recommended by: Sandy Hall

I found this book quite fascinating in its portrait of a man who was ahead of his times in many ways. Roger Williams began life in an orthodox Church of England family, became a Puritan as a youth, and then moved on to become a separatist and a dissenter who certainly preached and believed in Christ but eschewed all churches and denominations as holding undue sway and authority over the conscience of the individual. Williams, according to the book, made a life study of government and the relationship of church and state, and he came to the conclusion that the civil authority and the church were to be wholly separate, ruling in different spheres, and that the individual conscience before God was to reign supreme in matters of religion.

This biography is somewhat fictionalized, with dialog that is obviously made up, but the events of Roger Williams’s life are faithfully chronicled, as far as I could tell. Reading about Roger Williams made me think about the religious freedom we enjoy in the United States and the sources to whom we owe that freedom.

The Silver Pencil

By: Alice Dalgliesh
Illustrated by: Katherine Milhous

Honor

Reviewed by: Sherry Early
Recommended age: 15+

The Silver Pencil really isn’t a children’s book at all. It’s more of a young adult fiction book in the tradition of L.M. Montgomery’s sequels to Anne of Green Gables or her Emily of New Moon books, or maybe more like Little Women, the book that The Silver Pencil alludes to and depends upon for its framing device. (The main character, Janet, is a fan of Little Women, and hence of the United States, a country she has never seen until she comes to New York to study in her late teens, except in the pages of Alcott’s inspirational book.)

The Silver Pencil‘s protagonist, Janet Laidlaw, moves from Trinidad to England and then to the United States, to study kindergarten education. She has some health issues and also spends some time recuperating in Nova Scotia, Canada. Janet becomes a kindergarten teacher, but finds that she is better suited to be a writer. She struggles with young adult sorts of issues: finding her vocation, responding to the men who come into her life, deciding in what country her true citizenship should lie. I daresay most young adults don’t need to make the final decision, but they do decide how much of a citizen they will be and what citizenship and civic duty entail.

I liked the book, but it’s not going to appeal to the masses. For teen and twenty-something girls who like stories about bookish and thoughtful young ladies growing up in an earlier time period (again fans of Montgomery’s Emily books, perhaps), The Silver Pencil might be just the thing.