Project Newberry

I have a new goal, born of my great love of Young Adult Literature. Truthfully, I'd rather sit down with Young Adult fiction than almost anything else. I don't know that that says about me, but we won't dwell on that.

So, I decided that this year I will read every book awarded the Newbery Medal. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, the Newbery Medal is awarded to a children's book every year. Some of my favorite books won the Newbery Medal: The Witch of Blackbird Pond, From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Jacob Have I Loved. And, dear readers, after reading said books I am going to share my thoughts with you on this blog.

So before I go much further, let me say that I'm the first to admit that embarking on some project and then blogging about said project is nothing new and has been done SO many times before. (Like this foul-mouthed aspiring French chef or this seriously amazing woman.) As a public policy professor used to tell us, there are very few new ideas, just old ones dusted off and dressed up a bit. In Micah-speak: Deal with it.

In case any of you are actually interested at all, here is a list of all the Newbery Award winning books. Originally I was going to start with the first book awarded the Newbery Medal in 1922 (The Story of Mankind by Hendrick van Loon). I've decided to take another, non-chronological approach for reasons that will be clear if you decide to read the book yourself. I'm going to read the books in no particular order, starting with whatever I already own and then use the library. Bless the West Sahara Library for their ENTIRE SHELF dedicated to Newbery Award winning books. It's great! I can literally stand in one place and grab entire stacks of Newbery Award winning books with almost no effort. Once I found this little slice of literary heaven, I started myself prancing and frolicking up and down the aisle, flailing my arms about in utter glee. Okay, only on the inside. But if it weren't for the mores deeply entrenched in me by our inhibited and emotionally restrained society, I totally would have. Anyway, I'll work my way through whatever they have on their shelves and move forward from there.

Keep your eyes peeled for future posts, and wish me luck!