Claire M. Caterer: Newbery

Showing posts with label Newbery. Show all posts

Monday, March 10, 2014

Review: MOON OVER MANIFEST by Clare Vanderpool

Title: Moon Over Manifest
Author: Clare Vanderpool
Pub info: Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2010; 368 pp
Genre: MG historical fiction, ages 10+

Book No. 6 on the 2014 TBR List is not only a Newbery winner, it was written by a fellow Kansas native! It's been sitting on my shelf awhile, and I'm so glad I finally sat down and read it.

Goodreads summary:

Abilene Tucker feels abandoned. Her father has put her on a train, sending her off to live with an old friend for the summer while he works a railroad job. Armed only with a few possessions and her list of universals, Abilene jumps off the train in Manifest, Kansas, aiming to learn about the boy her father once was.

Having heard stories about Manifest, Abilene is disappointed to find that it’s just a dried-up, worn-out old town. But her disappointment quickly turns to excitement when she discovers a hidden cigar box full of mementos, including some old letters that mention a spy known as the Rattler. These mysterious letters send Abilene and her new friends, Lettie and Ruthanne, on an honest-to-goodness spy hunt, even though they are warned to “Leave Well Enough Alone.”

Abilene throws all caution aside when she heads down the mysterious Path to Perdition to pay a debt to the reclusive Miss Sadie, a diviner who only tells stories from the past. It seems that Manifest’s history is full of colorful and shadowy characters—and long-held secrets. The more Abilene hears, the more determined she is to learn just what role her father played in that history. And as Manifest’s secrets are laid bare one by one, Abilene begins to weave her own story into the fabric of the town.

Status: finished 3/6/14

My impressions:
I'd say, first of all, that the Goodreads summary above is a little misleading. The mysterious spy is not a huge plot in this novel. The real mystery is the heart of Manifest and its people. Now a dusty town beaten down by the Great Depression, Manifest was once a thriving town of immigrants with secrets. I love the format of the book: Abilene's first-person narrative is interspersed with stories from 1918 as told by her new friend Sadie and punctuated by clippings from a 1918 town newspaper. While not a fast-paced novel, the writing is light and easy and the characters so endearing that I opened it each day with a happy sigh, knowing I was in for a treat. Parts of it echoed strains of To Kill a Mockingbird, as I suppose many small-town stories do, but it's neither a paean or a ripoff. Manifest tells its own lovely, quiet story, one that readers will enjoy immensely.

About Clare Vanderpool:
Clare Vanderpool is a resident of Wichita, Kansas. She has a degree in English and elementary education and enjoys reading, going to the pool with her children, the television show Monk, and visiting the bookstores in her town. She won the Newbery Medal for Moon Over Manifest, her debut novel. Her second novel, Navigating Early (Delacorte, 2013), won a Printz Honor award for excellence in young adult literature.

Online:
Visit Clare's website here.

Want to win a free copy of this book? The first Monday of each month features a giveaway of any of the titles I've reviewed the previous month. Pick your fave, enter, and win! Next giveaway: April 7.

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Sunday, March 9, 2014

TBR 2014: Book No. 6

For shame, Claire! A fellow Kansas writer, a Newbery award winner who lives in your state, a wonderful lady who even attended your book signing in Wichita--and yeah, I've never read her debut novel. Okay, enough lashing! I'm reading Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool!

Vanderpool weaves humor and sorrow into a complex tale involving murders, orphans, bootlegging, and a mother in hiding. With believable dialogue, vocabulary and imagery appropriate to time and place, and well-developed characters, this rich and rewarding first novel is "like sucking on a butterscotch. Smooth and sweet." --Booklist (starred review)

Replete with historical details and surprises, Vanderpool's debut delights,
while giving insight into family and community. --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

So far, I am loving this book. It's rich and interesting and wonderfully written. Come on, read it with me!

That's right: I've committed to reading all the books on my TBR Shelf this year--and blogging them! Click here to read the reviews I've posted so far.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Review: BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE by Kate DiCamillo

Title: Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
Pub info: Candlewick, 2000; 182 pp (paperback edition)
Genre: MG contemporary

I always talk about Kate DiCamillo being one of my favorite authors, even though I haven't read everything she's written. I've set out to correct this terrible oversight, beginning with the marvelous Because of Winn-Dixie.

Goodreads summary:

The summer Opal and her father, the preacher, move to Naomi, Florida, Opal goes into the Winn-Dixie supermarket--and comes out with a dog. A big, ugly, suffering dog with a sterling sense of humor. A dog she dubs Winn-Dixie. Because of Winn-Dixie, the preacher tells Opal ten things about her absent mother, one for each year Opal has been alive. Winn-Dixie is better at making friends than anyone Opal has ever known, and together they meet the local librarian, Miss Franny Block, who once fought off a bear with a copy of War and Peace. They meet Gloria Dump, who is nearly blind but sees with her heart, and Otis, an ex-con who sets the animals in his pet shop loose after hours, then lulls them with his guitar.Opal spends all that sweet summer collecting stories about her new friends and thinking about her mother. But because of Winn-Dixie or perhaps because she has grown, Opal learns to let go, just a little, and that friendship—and forgiveness—can sneak up on you like a sudden summer storm.

My impressions:
The Goodreads summary above doesn't do this book justice. It's not just a sweet tale of how a scruffy dog helps a lonely little girl make friends and come to terms with loss--although it is that. The wonderful thing about DiCamillo's books is that they're so much more than they appear on the surface. Characters come so vividly to life that they feel like your best friends, from the half-blind Gloria to the bratty boys and stuck-up girl that Opal has to cope with. Not only is the story more than it appears, all of these characters are more than they appear. The story is about not judging people (and dogs) by their appearances or your first impressions, but learning to open yourself to taking a chance on them. All this is conveyed in Kate DiCamillo's spare and lovely prose--Opal's unique voice--and in under 200 pages to boot. Had I read Because of Winn-Dixie when it first came out, I would've been watching and reading whatever came next from DiCamillo's pen. As it is, I have plenty left to read.

About Kate DiCamillo:
Kate DiCamillo spent most of her childhood in the South, and moved to Minnesota when she was in her twenties. Because of Winn-Dixie, her first novel, was a Newbery Honor Book and has won more than twenty-five state awards. Kate has since written several other middle-grade novels and chapter books for younger readers. Her latest novel, Flora & Ulysses (Candlewick Press), won the 2013 Newbery Medal. Currently Kate is serving as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, 2014-15 term. She lives in Minneapolis.

Online: Visit Kate's website here, and follow her Facebook page here.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Reading Road Trip: KANSAS!

Welcome to the great state of Kansas! I hope you've been following the Reading Road Trip blog hop, hosted by the lovely Hafsah of IceyBooks and Britta at I Like These Books. If so, you're stopping off today on our dusty plains, following in the wagon-wheel tracks of many a brave American settler. Sit back and learn a little about the place, and then enter the giveaway to win a copy of Moon Over Manifest, the Newbery Award winner written by Kansan Clare Vanderpool!

I first moved to the state of Kansas at the age of seven. For the next eleven years, I lived with my family in Overland Park (Johnson County), then moved to Lawrence to attend the University of Kansas. After a seven-year stay in New York City, I returned to Johnson County to be near my family and to raise my own daughter.

Today Overland Park is the second-largest city in the state and often appears on lists like The 10 Best Places to Live in America, The Best Places for Raising a Family, and the like. With its award-winning school districts, low living expenses, and proximity to Kansas City, Overland Park and the surrounding cities that make up Johnson County are often called the best-kept secret in the nation.

But all that is in the eastern half of Kansas, right next to the Missouri border. Travel west, and you’ll soon hit Wichita, the state’s largest city and home to great restaurants, a marvelous university, and a diverse population. Still further west, the beautiful Flint Hills give way to the flat plains, large farms, and sparse population that usually loom large in the national picture of the Kansas landscape.

Konza Prairie Preserve, Flint Hills, Kansas

We Kansans embrace our heritage as the homeland of Dorothy and Wild Bill Hickok. We’re tough folks who can weather tornadoes, blizzards, Dust Bowls, and even the occasional grasshopper plague. And you know that toast you had for breakfast? Like as not, we grew the wheat it was made from right here in American’s breadbasket.

Tornado near Hesston, KS, 1990

FAST KANSAS FACTS

state population: 2,885,905
largest city: Wichita, pop 382,268
2d largest: Overland Park, pop 173,372
largest county: Johnson, pop 559,913
only 5 of Kansas's 105 counties have a population over 100,000

Kansas joined the Union on January 29, 1861, as a free state following years of struggle against anti-abolitionist forces. These conflicts earned it the title “Bleeding Kansas.”

Abolitionist John Brown as depicted in TRAGIC PRELUDE by John Steuart Curry

western meadowlark

state motto: Ad astra per aspera (To the stars through difficulties)
state flower: sunflower
tree: cottonwood
bird: western meadowlark
animal: buffalo (bison)

song: “Home on the Range”
nickname: the Sunflower State, the Jayhawk State
The name Kansas comes from a Sioux word meaning “people of the south wind”

HISTORICAL TIMELINE

1803 Thomas Jefferson acquires territory from the French in the Louisiana Purchase. The territory includes the future state of Kansas.

1821 The Santa Fe Trail opens in Kansas, helping European settlers heading west

1827 The U.S. Army opens Fort Leavenworth to protect the Western expansion from Native Americans

1854 The Kansas-Nebraska Act establishes Kansas and Nebraska Territories, despite previous agreements with various Native tribes to establish Kansas land as Indian reservations. Within a few years, Native Americans are driven out of the state into Oklahoma.

1855-58 The Kansas-Nebraska Act stipulates that citizens of Kansas Territory can vote on whether slavery would be allowed in their territory. Violence and battles erupt, earning the area the nickname “Bleeding Kansas.”

1861 On January 29, Kansas enters the Union as a free state.

1863 The Kansas Pacific Railway begins construction heading west from Kansas City. Major junctions included Lawrence, Salina, and Junction City.

1881 Kansas is the first state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages. Kansas did not repeal prohibition until 1948, and even then it continued to prohibit public bars, a restriction which was not lifted until 1987. Today, 29 of Kansas’s 105 counties remain dry.

1899 L. Frank Baum immortalizes the gray Kansas prairie in his book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

1930 An intense drought over the Great Plains induces the Dust Bowl, devastating dust storms throughout the region. Crippled as well by the Great Depression, Kansas farmers wouldn’t see relief until 1941.

1959 The Clutters, a farm family, are murdered in their home in Holcomb, KS. Truman Capote’s book In Cold Blood, published seven years later, told their story.

2005 Kansas allows some retail liquor sales on Sundays

SOME FAMOUS KANSANS:

Kirstie Alley, born in Wichita, actress

Amelia Earhart

Robert Dole, born in Russell, U.S. Senator & presidential candidate
Ann Dunham, born in Wichita, mother of Barack Obama
Amelia Earhart, born in Atchison, aviator
Dwight D. Eisenhower, raised in Abilene, 34th president
Buster Keaton, born in Piqua, actor/comedian
Jim Lehrer, born in Wichita, journalist & author

Hattie McDaniel, born in Wichita, first African American to win an Oscar (Gone With the Wind)
Clare Vanderpool, born in Wichita, Newbery Award-winning author
William Allen White, born in Emporia, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

Did You Know ...
James Naismith, who invented the game of basketball in 1891, was hired as a basketball coach and chaplain at the University of Kansas in Lawrence in 1898. He lived the rest of his life in Lawrence. Kansas University ranks second all-time (behind Kentucky) in NCAA Division I wins with 2,101 wins against 812 losses. The Kansas Jayhawks ranks first in NCAA history with 96 winning seasons.

     "No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home."
     The Scarecrow sighed.
    "Of course I cannot understand it," he said. "If your heads were stuffed with straw, like mine, you would probably all live in beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all. It is fortunate for Kansas that you have brains.”

--from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

And now for the giveaway! One week only, U.S. & Canada only, please. Enter to win a copy of Wichita native Clare Vanderpool's fantastic Newbery Award winner, Moon Over Manifest (yeah, it takes place in Kansas):

Abilene Tucker feels abandoned. Her father has put her on a train, sending her off to live with an old friend for the summer while he works a railroad job. Armed only with a few possessions and her list of universals, Abilene jumps off the train in Manifest, Kansas, aiming to learn about the boy her father once was.
Having heard stories about Manifest, Abilene is disappointed to find that it’s just a dried-up, worn-out old town. But her disappointment quickly turns to excitement when she discovers a hidden cigar box full of mementos, including some old letters that mention a spy known as the Rattler. These mysterious letters send Abilene and her new friends, Lettie and Ruthanne, on an honest-to-goodness spy hunt, even though they are warned to “Leave Well Enough Alone." ... [more]

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Reading Road Trip goes on all through the month of July! Here are the other stops--note that some of the giveaways go to the end of the month:

(Key: MG, YA, Adult, All Three)

Monday July 1:

Maine: Lisa Loves Literature {International}

Ends July 31st

New Hampshire: Book Cover Justice {International}

Ends July 31st

Tuesday July 2:

Vermont: Tales of a Word Weaver {US Only}

Ends July 31st

Massachusetts: World’s Oldest Fledgling {International}

Ends July 8th

Wednesday July 3: