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.

This strange little gem of a novel flies by in a flash, slowly pulling the reader along with just enough intrigue and mystery to build suspense from chapter to chapter.

Gay-Neck is, hands down, the best title to win the Newbery Medal as of 2020. What is a gay-neck? Why is it hyphenated? What makes it gay? Is it only the neck that’s gay, or are some other body parts at least bi-curious?

Will James’s life certainly doesn’t have the markings of a traditionally celebrated children’s author—he spent a year in Nevada State Penitentiary for stealing cattle, moved around between stunt work and the Army, and developed a serious drinking problem that sent him to the grave at age 50.

Of the five books recognized by the Newbery Award selection committee in 1925 and 1926, four of them were short story collections. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Poor Charles Boardman Hawes. In 1922, his sophomore novel, The Great Quest, came runner-up to The Story of Mankind for the inaugural Newbery Medal. By the time he won the prize in 1924, he’d been dead for nearly a year, cut down by a sudden bout of pneumonia.

This alternatingly charming and problematic book is probably way more racist than you remember.

And so begins my journey through every one of the first 100 John Newbery Medal recipients. What did adults think kids should be reading in 1921?