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From: Dean Schneider <schneiderd>
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 22:02:08 -0600
OK, I don't mind being one of the first to talk about the National Book Awards. If I had to list the books in the order of my preference:
-- Carolyn Coman's Many Stones
-- Jerry Stanley's Hurry Freedom
-- Adam Bagdasarian's Forgotten Fire
-- Whelan's Homeless Bird
-- Michael Cadnum's Book of the Lion
Carolyn Coman has a knack for putting the reader in the head of her main character, so we're not just reading about the character, we're in the character, thinking and feeling our way along with her. This is a sophisticated and delicate novel you keep thinking about long after you've finished it. It handles tough themes with a sensitive touch.
Jerry Stanley is a fine writer, and Hurry Freedom is an excellent book. It's about African Americans in the California Gold Rush, a topic I knew little about prior to reading this eloquently told story. It tells about the Gold Rush through the eyes of Mifflin Gibbs, who arrived in California in 1850 with ten cents in his pocket, started a business, and helped run the Underground Railroad in California. As with his other books, Jerry Stanley tells a lot of history through one person's particular experience.
Forbidden Fire is a novel about the Armenian Holocaust of 1915, a beautifully wrought story about an ugly, horrifying time. It is based on the experiences of the author's great-uncle. As much as you want to turn away from the story as you read, for all of its graphic detail, it is so beautifully and humanely written that it is a new, important contribution to Holocaust literature.
I won't say much about Homeless Bird or the Book of the Lion since I didn't find them as compelling or as well written as the three books above. As I said in a previous posting, I had just finished reading Suzanne Fisher Staples's Shabanu with my 7th graders when I read Homeless Bird. Shabanu, set in the Cholistan Desert of Pakistan, is a beautifully told story, richly detailed; Homeless Bird, a similar story set in India, seems anemic next to it. And in The Book of the Lion I couldn't get away from the feeling that the author's research was too evident, too many times details seemed to be there just to teach us something about the historical period. As Katherine Paterson says, if your research shows, you haven't buried it well enough in the story.
Anyway, three of the NBA books are among my rather large list of favorite books of the year.
Dean Schneider Ensworth School 211 Ensworth Avenue Nashville, TN 37205 schneiderd at ensworth.com
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 22:02:08 -0600
OK, I don't mind being one of the first to talk about the National Book Awards. If I had to list the books in the order of my preference:
-- Carolyn Coman's Many Stones
-- Jerry Stanley's Hurry Freedom
-- Adam Bagdasarian's Forgotten Fire
-- Whelan's Homeless Bird
-- Michael Cadnum's Book of the Lion
Carolyn Coman has a knack for putting the reader in the head of her main character, so we're not just reading about the character, we're in the character, thinking and feeling our way along with her. This is a sophisticated and delicate novel you keep thinking about long after you've finished it. It handles tough themes with a sensitive touch.
Jerry Stanley is a fine writer, and Hurry Freedom is an excellent book. It's about African Americans in the California Gold Rush, a topic I knew little about prior to reading this eloquently told story. It tells about the Gold Rush through the eyes of Mifflin Gibbs, who arrived in California in 1850 with ten cents in his pocket, started a business, and helped run the Underground Railroad in California. As with his other books, Jerry Stanley tells a lot of history through one person's particular experience.
Forbidden Fire is a novel about the Armenian Holocaust of 1915, a beautifully wrought story about an ugly, horrifying time. It is based on the experiences of the author's great-uncle. As much as you want to turn away from the story as you read, for all of its graphic detail, it is so beautifully and humanely written that it is a new, important contribution to Holocaust literature.
I won't say much about Homeless Bird or the Book of the Lion since I didn't find them as compelling or as well written as the three books above. As I said in a previous posting, I had just finished reading Suzanne Fisher Staples's Shabanu with my 7th graders when I read Homeless Bird. Shabanu, set in the Cholistan Desert of Pakistan, is a beautifully told story, richly detailed; Homeless Bird, a similar story set in India, seems anemic next to it. And in The Book of the Lion I couldn't get away from the feeling that the author's research was too evident, too many times details seemed to be there just to teach us something about the historical period. As Katherine Paterson says, if your research shows, you haven't buried it well enough in the story.
Anyway, three of the NBA books are among my rather large list of favorite books of the year.
Dean Schneider Ensworth School 211 Ensworth Avenue Nashville, TN 37205 schneiderd at ensworth.com
--Received on Wed 03 Jan 2001 10:02:08 PM CST
