Howdy!
I’m a big nerd who reads too much. Don’t take any of this too seriously.
I’m a big nerd who reads too much. Don’t take any of this too seriously.
For the past 40 years and change, Lucinda Williams has been responsible for some of the most progressive, empathetic music to come out of country music. A critically-acclaimed but commercially underappreciated artist, she enters her eighth decade with a surprisingly diverse discography that traverses just about every corner the genre.
If Toni Morrison is described as “America’s Conscience”, Cormac McCarthy represents something closer to America’s unbridled id. His novels are vicious, unblinking reminders of the deep evils of genocide and violence America was born from, without the sheen of manifest destiny and cultural myths to mask them. Through classic Western tropes—chief among them the cowboy—McCarthy reveals the insidious nature of our inherited folklore, the full price of our collective gains rendered in blood.
A one-of-a-kind artist who, at 63, gives you the feeling that he still hasn’t quite peaked. Nobody conjures feeling quite like Nick Cave.
Lois Lenski sought to bottle Florida’s unique culture in Strawberry Girl. For better and worse, she succeeded wildly.
It’s a trifle, but a consistently pleasant and endearing one. In 1945, maybe that’s what kids needed most.
Surprisingly complex and nuanced in its approach to morality and disability, Johnny Tremain still stands up as a classic work of children’s literature.
It’s an NRA wet dream come to life, a story I’m sure plenty of militia members still read to their kids before bed, and a book that only works if you’ve been living off-grid your whole life and have never met an actual, human child.
Call it Courage is the kid lit version of a beach read, both literally and metaphorically, and it mostly lives up to what it was trying to achieve 80 years ago.
Thimble Summer is the first winner set in the Great Depression. And while I’m sure it does a fine job reflecting the realities of growing up in the ‘30s, it also makes it seem like a really boring time to be a kid.
Seredy’s lavish illustrations and luxurious phrasing help take the edge off of the grizzlier points of the story, but this is still a whacked-out fever dream that reads like Terrence Malick directing a Rob Zombie flick.
What other children’s books had characters grappling with the morality of capitalism in the 1930s?
Caddie Woodlawn is a mean-spirited, hurtful book that belongs in the trash.
Invincible Louisa strikes me as a book homeschool moms looove, but not the cool homeschool moms.
Unlike some other authors who’d won the Newbery by 1933, Lewis could write the hell out of a children’s book.
Waterless Mountain, a deep dive into Najavo (Diné) culture written by Laura Adams Armer, is the first Newbery book I haven’t been able to borrow from the local library, and after reading it, I’m bummed that it’s one I purchased for my own collection.
After the mostly grueling (though intermittently enjoyable) slog of getting through the first decade of Newbery winners, nothing could have prepared me for The Cat Who Went to Heaven. How the hell did it sneak onto this list?
The book is competently written, and it’s easy to see how a stereotypical 1930s American Girl® might have liked reading about a doll’s adventures. But I’ll be the first to tell you: Hitty sucks.
