From: Rob Reid <reid>
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 21:56:35 -0600

Last month I started to read A Year Down Yonder. While I enjoyed it, I must have not been in the mood and put it aside. I think I was too tired of the characters and the setting.I love the grandma character but I felt she had more sparkle in the first book.

I was all set to return the book to my library on Monday when the Newbery Awards were announced. I held onto the book for another day and read it in one sitting. I was touched mostly by the family connections. Peck can certainly write circles around most writers. And a killer cover! It now graces my computer screen.

Many of the chapters will stand on their own as read-alouds to sell the book to kids, particularly the Halloween and Mildred Burdick chapters. I added this Year Down Yonder sentence to my collection of quotations: "If you're going to read minds, start with a simple one."

I thought Joey Pigza (another sequel) was just as good. Neither book grabbed me as much as the fantasies The Amber Spyglass and the 4th Harry Potter (both ineligible for the Newbery). But good, solid reads nonetheless.

My initial reactions on reading the list of Newbery winners were: No Nonfiction
(Again!) This was a bumper crop year of excellent written nonfiction books. No poetry (Again!) And all of the Newbery books seemed to fit that hard-to?scribe
"Newbery-type" book - fiction for older readers that deals with heavy emotions. Know what I mean?

Rob Reid Youth Services/Special Needs Coordinator Indianhead Federated Library System 1538 Truax Blvd, Eau Claire, WI 54703 715?9P82, ext. 14 reid at ifls.lib.wi.us
Received on Wed 17 Jan 2001 09:56:35 PM CST