How relevant is the Newbery Medal?

A few years ago, when my book review column was still active at Mugglenet, I set myself a goal to read as many Newbery Medal winning and shortlisted novels as possible. And I felt at the time that I was making lots of progress on that plan. I do still have a few on my bookshelf that I haven't read yet. But I decided to take a look at the list of that award's winners and nominees since since 1922 – over 100 years! – to test from my own perspective how much the Association for Library Service to Children's picks for honors and medals parallels my personal reading choices. And I have to say ... not all that well. Here's the skinny.

This wiki page lists the winners and honor books since 1922. I didn't read any of the books nominated in that first year. I did read the 1923 winner, Hugh Lofting's The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle. I think I have the 1924 winner, Charles Boardman Hawes' The Dark Frigate, lying around somewhere; I really ought to flip through it one of these days. The next year in which a nominated or winning title rings a bell for me is 1927, where the winner, Will James' Smoky the Cowhorse, also has the ring of something I might have bought but forgotten to read. Closing out that decade, the 1929 winner, Eric P. Kelly's The Trumpeter of Krakow, is one I've read and distinctly remember.

Moving onto the 1930s, I see long lists of nominated titles, none of which I have read until the 1933 winner, Yung Fu of the Upper Yangtze by Elizabeth Foreman Lewis, on which I gave an oral book report to my seventh grade teacher. I can actually remember quite a bit about that book, too. The next notch on by bookmark is Carol Ryrie Brink's Caddie Woodlawn, which won the medal in 1936. A 1938 honor book, Laura Ingalls Wilder's On the Banks of Plum Creek, was part of a set of "Little House on the Prairie" books that I certainly read as a youngster, though I don't remember it specifically. As for 1939's nominees, I read honor book Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater. The winner that year was Elizabeth Enright's Thimble Summer, which I haven't read, though I have reviewed five of her other books.

Among nominees and winners of the 1940s, I'm pretty sure (on grounds previously stated) that I read Wilder's By the Shores of Silver Lake sometime when I was young; it was a 1940 honor book. The 1941 winner, Armstrong Sperry's Call It Courage, and one honor book from that year, Wilder's The Long Winter, are two that I've definitely read. So are the 1942 winner, Walter D. Edmonds' The Matchlock Gun, and honor book Little Town on the Prairie by Wilder; likewise the 1943 winner, Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Gray Vining (a.k.a. Elizabeth Janet Gray). However, I somehow missed 1943 honor book The Middle Moffat by Estes, despite having read at least one other book in her Moffats series. From 1944, I've read winner Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes, Wilder's honor book These Happy Golden Years (probably), but again, surprisingly not Estes' Rufus M. From 1945, I've read the winner Robert Lawson's Rabbit Hill, as well as honor book, Estes' The Hundred Dresses. From 1946, I've read winner, Lois Lenski's Strawberry Girl. Out of 1947's nominees, I've read honor book The Avion My Uncle Flew by Cyrus Fisher. From 1948, I've read winner The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pène du Bois. I think I have a book by Marguerite Henry cooling its heels somewhere among my stacks, possibly the 1949 winner, King of the Wind.

From the 1950s, I have definitely read Marguerite de Angeli's 1950 winner, The Door in the Wall, and 1951's winner, Ginger Pye by Estes. I've read the 1953 winner, The Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark, as well as honor book Charlotte's Web by E.B. White – obviously. I mean, seriously! How did that book not win? I've read the 1954 winner, Joseph Krumgold's ...And Now Miguel, but Meindert DeJong's 1955 winner, The Wheel on the School, languishes on my to-be-read pile. I've read the 1956 winner, Jean Lee Latham's Carry On, Mr. Bowditch; the 1957 winner, Virginia Sorensen's Miracles on Maple Hill, as well as (long ago, I'm sure) honor book Old Yeller by Fred Gipson. The 1958 winner, Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith, is on my TBR pile, but I did read honor book Gone-Away Lake by Enright. I've read the 1959 winner, The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare.

From the 1960s, I've read the 1960 winner, Krumgold's Onion John, as well as honor book The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall; I think I have Jean Craighead George's My Side of the Mountain (another honor book) on TBR. I've read both the 1961 winner, Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins, and honor book The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden. I think I have Speare's The Bronze Bow, winner of the 1962 medal, on TBR. Of course I've read Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, which won in 1963. And the 1964 winner, Emily Neville's It's Like This, Cat. And the 1965 winner, Maia Wojciechowska's Shadow of a Bull. And the 1966 winner, Elizabeth Borton de Treviño's I, Juan de Pareja, as well as Lloyd Alexander's honor book from that year, The Black Cauldron (which probably should have won). I've read Irene Hunt's 1967 winner, Up a Road Slowly, as well as O'Dell's honor book from that year, The King's Fifth. From 1968, I've read the winner, E.L. Konigsburg's From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, as well as honor book The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. From 1969, I've read winner The High King by Lloyd Alexander, amazingly his only win and one of only two nominations for such a magnificent writer. I've read 18 of his books and I would heap awards on more of them, if I were the ALSC.

From the 1970s, I've read the 1970 winner, Sounder by William H. Armstrong; the 1971 winner, Betsy Byars' Summer of the Swans; Robert C. O'Brien's 1972 winner, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, plus honor books The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin and Keatley Snyder's The Headless Cupid; and Craighead George's 1973 winner, Julie of the Wolves. That year's honor book, Snyder's The Witches of Worm, is somewhere on TBR. It's a big pile; you'd understand why I haven't read it yet if you saw it. From 1974, I've read both the winner, Paula Fox's The Slave Dancer, and what should have won, honor book The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper. I think I have the 1975 winner, Virginia Hamilton's M.C. Higgins, the Great, on TBR. I've read Cooper's 1976 winner, The Grey King. From 1977, I've read the winner, Mildred D. Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, and honor book A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond, which I think should have won. I've read the 1978 winner, Katherine Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia, as well as honor book Ramona and Her Father by Beverly Cleary. And from 1979, I've read both the winner, Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game, and Paterson's honor book, The Great Gilly Hopkins; they're both quite memorable, but I think Paterson's book should have won. I have a lump in my throat right now, thinking of it.

From the 1980s, I've read 1980's winner, Joan Blos' A Gathering of Days; the 1981 winner, Paterson's Jacob Have I Loved; the 1983 winner, Cynthia Voigt's Dicey's Song, plus honor book The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley (which would have had my vote, if'n I'd had a vote); Cleary's 1984 winner, Dear Mr. Henshaw, as well as Voigt's honor book, A Solitary Blue; McKinley's 1985 winner, The Hero and the Crown; Patricia MacLachlan's 1986 winner, Sarah, Plain and Tall; Sid Fleischman's 1987 winner, The Whipping Boy; Russell Freedman's 1988 winner, Lincoln: A Photobiography, as well as Gary Paulsen's honor book, Hatchet – whose classic status probably means it should have won; and Paul Fleischman's 1989 winner, Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices.

To start the 1990s, I've read the 1990 winner, Lois Lowry's Number the Stars; Jerry Spinelli's 1991 winner, Maniac Magee, while Avi's honor book, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle is on TBR; Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's 1992 winner, Shiloh; Cynthia Rylant's 1993 winner, Missing May; Lowry's 1994 winner, The Giver; Sharon Creech's 1995 winner, Walk Two Moons along with the honor books, Karen Cushman's Catherine, Called Birdy and Nancy Farmer's The Ear, the Eye and the Arm (an amazing book that should have won); Cushman's 1996 winner, The Midwife's Apprentice; Konigsburg's 1997 winner, The View from Saturday, along with honor books Belle Prater's Boy by Ruth White and the should-have-won The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner; Karen Hesse's 1998 winner Out of the Dust along with honor books Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine and Spinelli's Wringer; and for 1999, Louis Sachar's winner Holes as well as Richard Peck's honor book, A Long Way from Chicago.

Moving into the 2000s, the next book on the Newbery medal/honor list that I've read is the 2001 winner, Peck's A Year Down Yonder; though I think I may have the 2000 winner, Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis on TBR. Also from 2001, a very good year in children's books I gather, I've read honor books Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer, Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo, Joey Pigza Loses Control by Jack Gantos and The Wanderer by Sharon Creech. That's all of the titles for that year! From 2002, I've read Linda Sue Park's winner, A Single Shard, as well as Polly Horvath's honor book, Everything on a Waffle. From 2003, another terrific year, I've read not only Avi's winning novel, Crispin: The Cross of Lead, but also three of the five honor books: Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion, Carl Hiaasen's Hoot and Stephanie S. Tolan's Surviving the Applewhites. Froom 2004, I've read both the winner, DiCamillo's The Tale of Desperaux, and honor book Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes. My only conquest from the 2005 list is honor book Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko. I also read the 2006 honor books Whittington by Alan Armstrong and Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. And then there's a three-year gap before the next two that I've read: 2009 winner The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and honor book Savvy by Ingrid Law.

Into the 2010s, the next book I've read is the 2012 winner, Gantos' Dead End in Norvelt. From 2013, I read Katherine Applegate's winner, The One and Only Ivan, as well as Sheila Turnage's honor book, Three Times Lucky. I also wanted to read Laura Amy Schlitz's honor book Splendor and Glooms, but if I recall correctly, I over-borrowed from the library and had to return it before I had the chance. I did read Kwame Alexander's 2015 winner, The Crossover, as well as Cece Bell's honor book, El Deafo. Aaaaaand ... that's literally the last year of which I've read any of the nominated or winning books.

Contemplating why certain decades' Newbery titles are loaded with books I've read, while I've totally missed out on others' winners and honor books, I think part of it comes down to availability. Books of a relatively recent vintage, with a good record of sales and critical acclaim, are probably just easier to find. Some of them, I may have actually read before they won their honors or medals. And then there's the whole marketing component of winning a big award like the Newbery, where you seek them out (as I clearly did, especially in the cases of the older titles on this list) precisely because they were listed, and that provided a certain confidence in their quality. To be sure, some of them, especially from earlier decades, were rather bland and thin stuff, and I started to pick up on a bias toward historical fiction and/or stories about growing up in the old days, on some kind of farm for example. And there are a lot of books about hurting kids, or kids with behavioral issues, kids in the foster care system, etc. Maybe the kind of title that need an award to give it a push because they aren't what the average young reader would necessarily choose. And while I see a decent number of books on the list that I haven't read, but would still be interested in, I have to be honest enough to say that I don't see many titles in recent years of the Newbery awards that call to me. Too many of the titles murmur "booooriiiing" as my eye glides past them.

But before I write off the Newbery Medal as being somewhat irrelevant to what interests me as a reader (despite the abundant examples to the contrary), let's compare its record to that of the Carnegie Medal, a parallel award for children's literature founded in 1936 and given by the British Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CLIP). Of its winners, I have the 1936 winner, Arthur Ransome's Pigeon Post, on TBR; I've read 1942's The Little Grey Men by BB, 1946's The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, Mary Norton's The Borrowers from 1952, C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle from 1956, Philippa Pearce's Tom's Midnight Garden from 1958, Lucy M. Boston's A Stranger at Green Knowe from 1961, Richard Adams' Watership Down from 1972 (but is that really a children's book?), Phlip Pullman's Northern Lights (a.k.a. The Golden Compass) from 1995, David Almond's Skellig from 1998, Terry Pratchett's The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents from 2001, Creech's Ruby Holler from 2002, Frank Cottrell Boyce's Millions from 2004, Gaiman's The Graveyard Book from 2010 (the first book to win both medals), and ... nothing. That's it for the winners.

A much shorter list, but of course I haven't gone into the "commended" books (similar to Newbery honor books), which include Boston's The Children of Green Knowe and Lewis' The Horse and His Boy from 1954; Boston's The Chimneys of Green Knowe, a.k.a. The Treasure of Green Knowe from 1958; Mary Norton's The Borrowers Afloat from 1959; Joan Aiken's The Whispering Mountain from 1968; Cooper's The Dark Is Rising (again) from 1973; Cooper's The Grey King (again) and Diana Wynne Jones' Dogsbody from 1975; Wynne Jones' Charmed Life from 1977; Wynne Jones' The Lives of Christopher Chant from 1988; Pratchett's Johnny and the Bomb from 1996; J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's (or Sorcerer's) Stone from 1997; Pullman's The Amber Spyglass from 2000; Creech's Love That Dog from 2001; Choldenko's Al Capone Does My Shirts (again), Eva Ibbotson's The Star of Kazan and Pullman's The Scarecrow and His Servant, all for 2004 (and with love and respect toward Millions, the Pullman book should have won that year); Cottrell Boyce's Framed for 2005; Eoin Colfer's Airman and Cottrell Boyce's Cosmic from 2009; Philip Reeve's Fever Crumb (on my TBR pile) for 2010; Cottrell Boyce's Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth for 2017; and again, nothing after that.

Then there are the National Book Awards, which had an award for children's books from 1969 to 1979, then multiple children's book categories for a few years in the 1980s, then nothing specifically in the kids' book department for some time, before starting a new Young People's Literature award in 1996. Many of their winners or finalists are on the above lists as well. Titles I've read or collected on these lists, whether winners or finalists, include Lloyd Alexander's The High King (again) for 1969; Alexander's The Marvelous Adventures of Sebastian and E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan in 1971; Le Guin's The Tombs of Atuan (again) in 1972; Le Guin's The Farthest Shore, Craighead George's Julie of the Wolves (again) and Keatley Snyder's The Witches of Worm (again) in 1973; Hamilton's M.C. Higgins, the Great (again) in 1975, Taylor's Roll of Thunder (again) in 1977; Paterson's The Great Gilly Hopkins (again) and Lloyd Alexander's The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha in 1979; Blos' A Gathering of Days (again) in 1980; L'Engle's A Swiftly Tilting Planet and the paperback of Gilly Hopkins in 1980; Paterson's Jacob Have I Loved (again), the paperback of The High King and Raskin's The Westing Game (again) in 1981; Lloyd Alexander's Westmark, Cynthia Voigt's Homecoming, and paperbacks of Jacob Have I Loved and Lloyd Alexander's The Wizard in the Tree, all in 1982; Lloyd Alexander's The Kestrel in 1983; Sachar's Holes (again), Peck's A Long Way from Chicago (again) and Gantos' Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key (again) in 1998; Horvath's The Trolls in 1999; Farmer's The House of the Scorpion (again) in 2002; Horvath's The Canning Season in 2003; Jeanne Birdsall's The Penderwicks in 2005; M.T. Anderson's The Pox Party in 2006; William Alexander's Goblin Secrets in 2012; Neal Shusterman's Challenger Deep (on my TBR pile) in 2015; and nothing since then. A lot of the titles I'm seeing on this list suggest that the National Book Awards value things I wouldn't particularly look for in a chidlren's book.

How about the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction? Starting in 1918, the titles I have collected or read include Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth (1932), Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' The Yearling (1939), John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea (1953), James Agee's A Death in the Family (TBR; 1958), Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (1961), John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces (1981), and Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See (again; 2015). Just to compare, how many winners of Pulitzer Prizes for Music have I listened to? There's Howard Hanson's 4th Symphony (1944), Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring (1945), Charles Ives' 3rd Symphony (1947), Walter Piston's 3rd Symphony (1948), Piston's 7th (1961), Samuel Barber's Piano Concerto (1963), Steven Stucky's Concerto for Orchestra (finalist, 1989), John Adams' On the Transmigration of Souls (2003; I was actually in the chorus of this piece during a 2006 performance at Carnegie Hall), and nothing since this, probably because I moved out of St. Louis in 2014 and haven't been able to attend the symphony since then.

The Mildred L. Batchelder Award is the American Library Association's annual award recognizing outstanding children's books translated into English and published in the U.S. Since 1968, winners and runners-up that I've read include: Astrid Lindgren's Ronia, the Robber's Daughter (trans. by Patricia Crampton) in 1984; Cornelia Funke's The Thief Lord (tr. Oliver Latsch) in 2003; and ... nothing. That's it. A very under-represented category in my reading, I guess.

Since 2009, the Young Adult Library Services Association has given William C. Morris Award to a first-time author writing for teens. Which of their winners and/or finalists have I read? From 2009, Elizabeth Bunce's A Curse Dark as Gold and Kristin Cashore's Graceling; from 2011, Lish McBride's Hold Me Closer, Necromancer; from 2013, Rachel Hartman's Seraphina; and that's it to-date. Too niche?

Since 1998, YALSA has also given the Alex Award to books written for adults that have teen appeal. And I mean lots of books, every year. Ones I've read include Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm and Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, both from 1998 (which I read before I started keeping my reviews); Neil Gaiman's Stardust from 2000; Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair in 2003; Gaiman's Anansi Boys and A. Lee Martinez's Gil's All Fright Diner in 2006; John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things in 2007; Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind (TBR) in 2008; Lev Grossman's The Magicians and Gail Carriger's Soulless in 2010; Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus and Ernest Cline's Ready Player One in 2012; Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See and Andy Weir's The Martian in 2015; and I must say, a lot of other titles that look like they'd be fun to read. Maybe this is the award show I should be watching.

I skimmed through The Agatha Awards, given by Malice Domestic Ltd. annually since 1988. Of the winners and finalists in the "best first novel" category I've read Alan Bradley's The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie from 2009. Under "best contemporary novel," since 2013, I've read not a single title. Under "best novel," since 1988, I've read Charlaine Harris' Dead Until Dark from 2001. Skipping to the "best children/young adult fiction" award (2000 ff.), I've read Blue Balliett's Chasing Vermeer from 2004; R.L. LaFevers' Theodosia and the Eyes of Horus in 2010 – no, actually, I never got to that installment; Matthew J. Kirby's Icefall in 2011; Chris Grabenstein's Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library in 2013; and Stuart Gibbs' Spy Ski School in 2016. Again, probably too niche.

The Canadian Library Association awarded a Book of the Year for Children award most years (but not all) from 1947 to 2016. Have I read any of the winners? The first one I spotted on the list was 1998's Silverwing by Kenneth Oppel, followed by Oppel's Sunwing in 2000 and Jonathan Auxier's The Night Gardener in 2015. And that's all of those.

The Ezra Jack Keats Book Award has honored authors and illustrators who were early in their career since 1986. Have I ever read a book on its list of winners? Um ... no.

The Golden Kite Awards have been given annually since 1974 by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, recognizing excellence in children's literature. I see authors on it whose books I've read, but titles? The first is 1983's Ralph S. Mouse by Beverly Cleary. In 1986 there's MacLachlan's Sarah, Plain and Tall (again). In 1995 there's Cushman's Catherine, Called Birdy (again). Choldenko's Al Capone Does My Shirts got a Sid Fleischman Humor Award in 2005. The same award went to Alan Silberberg's Milo: Sticky Notes and Brain Freeze in 2011. There's Shusterman's Challenger Deep (again) in 2016. And that's all.

The Jane Addams Children's Book Award has been given annually, since 1953, to a book promoting the causes of peace and social equality. Have I read any of the winners? Well ... I did read John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage, whose young reader memorial edition received the award in 1964. And Mildred Taylor's Song of the Trees (1976), and Taylor's Roll of Thunder (again, 1977); and Paterson's Gilly Hopkins (again, 1979); and Lowry's Number the Stars (again, 1990); and I think that's it. Not really my niche, I guess.

The Stonewall Book Award recognizes work relating to LGBTQ issues, going back to 1971. There are categories for literature, nonfiction and (starting in 2010) children's/young adult books. Out of curiosity, to see if I've read anything on this list, I skimmmed through it. Again, I see some authors whose books I've read. But titles? In 2012 the "annotated, uncensored" edition of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray appeared in multiple categories. Nothing else jumped out at me. Clearly, not my niche. It's not that I've never read a book with gay themes in it, but apparently none of them went up for this award.

The Sydney Taylor Book Award recognizes excellence in Jewish children's literature going back to 1968. Again, not particularly my niche. But do any of the titles appear in my have-read or TBR lists? I took a look and found Lowry's Number the Stars (again), 1989. I found Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, 2007. And that's about it.

The Tomás Rivera Award recognizes children's books relating to the Mexican American experience, going back to 1996. Again, I'm not seeing anything I've read on the list. Not trying to avoid material relating to that area of interest, but not actively pursuing it either. In fact, I've read books by a couple of authors represented on this list. Just not their award winners.

The Walter Dean Myers Award has been given since 2016 for young adult books by the organization We Need Diverse Books, for what it's worth. Have I read any of them? I've seen books with the WDMA badge on them and that hasn't ever made me feel especially like buying them. But I skimmed this list, too, and found no titles that I've read.

The Coretta Scott King Award has been given since 1970 to authors and illustrators of children's/young adult books by African Americans. Again, I'm familiar with many of the authors listed as winners or honor recipients. Titles? There's Taylor's Song of the Trees (again) in 1977. There's Curtis' Bud, Not Buddy (again) in 2000. And that's about it.

The Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature, going back to 2001, also includes both adult and children's/young adult categories. Between them, I find Yann Martel's Life of Pi and Park's A Single Shard (again) in 2001-03. And that's all.

The Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction has been going out since 1984, again to American children's books. A lot of the authors on the winner's list are well known to me, but titles that I have read include MacLachlan's Sarah, Plain and Tall (again) in 1986, Hesse's Out of the Dust (again) in 1998, Gantos' Dead End in Norvelt (again) in 2012, and .... that's it.

Finally, I see a lot of Kirkus Prizes bandied about. Have I read their titles? Focusing on fiction and young readers' lit since 2014, winners I've read include: Cece Bell's El Deafo (again), 2014; Jerry Craft's New Kid, 2019; and nothing else.

I know of some other awards that are regional or that recognize an author's body of work. I don't really feel like holding my well-readness up against their lists. But if you know of an award whose winners I should check my have-read shelf for, let me know. But my general conclusion is that award nominations and wins don't correlate much to my reading habits. I've given awards of my own, some years – particularly when I was reading more books than I have lately. Maybe I should stick to that!

A Complete Unknown

Last night I took myself out to see A Complete Unknown in a mostly packed, small theater downtown. In case you're not paying attention, it's a Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet as the folk-rock legend in the early part of his career, based on Elijah Wald's book, Dylan Goes Electric. It depicts this gifted, young songwriter coming out of nowhere (or Minnesota, whatever), working his way up from a nobody who couldn't get his songs played on the radio until he let Joan Baez cover them, struggling with his sudden fame and success, and struggling to do what he wanted musically despite everyone around him having their own ideas on what he should do. It depicts Dylan as a mystery man with really intense personal boundaries, hiding much of himself away from others, communicating most clearly through his music, perhaps to the extent of struggling with relationships. And it focuses intensely on how he helped bring the Newport Folk Festival to a peak of popularity before his decision to "go electric" (cf. the song "Like a Rolling Stone") brought him into direct and heated conflict with the Newport board.

Maybe it's nostalgia for the period – although it was before I was born. Maybe it's warm feelings for the music – although I've never really been a big fan. But something about this movie hit me as really powerful. I mean, I shed tears during it, as early as the second scene with dialogue. I sympathized with Dylan even while finding him somewhat frustrating as a character. He comes across as a bit of a vagabond, even in the midst of great success – a two-timing lover, a freeloading guest who shows up at his exes' apartments unannounced and then fails to ingratiate himself, a sore winner who recoils from his fans' adoration and adulation, a loose cannon whose cooperation cannot be counted on when asked to get with any program but his own. Still, it's kind of wild to think of him being jeered and pelted with random objects when debuting "Like a Rolling Stone" at Newport. The idea that such lovey-dovey, flowers-and-rainbow types could be so quickly stirred to such a pitch of rage over that song, because of its electric guitars and Wurlitzer organ, is an irony that lands hard. But Dylan came out the winner, as our culture knows well.

The movie is directed by James Mangold, known for such movies as Cop Land; Girl, Interrupted; Walk the Liine; 3:10 to Yuma; Logan and Ford v Ferrari. He also, in the interest of balanced reporting, sent the Indiana Jones franchise off into the sunset with a stench of failure. It stars Timothée Chalamet as Dylan, Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning as a slightly fictionalized love interest, Boyd Holbrook (The Predator) as Johnny Cash, Monica Barbaro (Chicago Justice, The Good Cop) as Baez, Dan Fogler (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) as Dylan's agent, Scott McNairy (Halt and Catch Fire) as Woody Guthrie, and two-time Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz (Cabaret, Catch Me If You Can) as the angriest guy on the Newport board. I'm impressed with the cast but particularly with Chalamet, who looks like he's really playing guitar, harmonica and piano and actually singing – though Dylan's actual recordings are better produced.

Three Scenes that Made It For Me: (1) A then "complete unknown" Dylan shows up at the sanatarium where Guthrie is dying of Huntington's disease and plays for him and Seeger a little song he wrote. It might be the earliest I've ever cried during a movie. (2) Guthrie tactfully tells Baez, the morning after sleeping over, that her songs remind him of the oil paintings in a dentist's office. (3) A very drunk Cash tries to move his crookedly parked land yacht so Dylan can take his motorcycle out. High-level honorable mention: Fanning (as the barely fictionalized girlfriend) leaves Newport, and Dylan can't find the words to stop her. You almost think if she gave him time to write and perform a song, he might be able to say what he means. Like, "Babe, without you here there's nobody on my side." Though that wouldn't have been quite true. He did have people on his side, and still does after all these years and, my goodness, 55 albums and oodles of touring. Even though Dylan, or at least Chalamet as Dylan, doesn't vividly convey to you "how does it feel" to be where he's at during this part of his career, you do somewhat get a sense of it and the movie wholly succeeds.

Impossible Creatures

Impossible Creatures
by Katherine Rundell
Recommended Ages: 12+

The last time I remember opening a book to its first page, reading its first sentence and deciding then and there that I had to buy the book was in approximately 2011, when I opened Gene Wolfe's Litany of the Long Sun to the sentence "Enlightenment came to Patera Silk on the ball court." This time around it was the sentence "It was a very fine day, until something tried to eat him," and the book was this. In a parallel sentence, one short chapter later, it goes on to say, "It was a very fine day, until somebody tried to kill her." The him and the her are a boy and a girl from almost entirely different worlds. I mean, they're both from Earth, but Christopher is from the earth we know and Mal (short for Malum) is a native of a hidden Archipelago where magical creatures thrive, cut off from the threat of being hunted to extinction by non-magical folks like us. But it turns out that whatever is keeping the magical part of the world safe – let's call it the glimourie – is really of vital importance to the whole world, and for some reason, it seems to be dying. Whatever is killing it is bad news not just for unicorns, krakens, dragons and sphinxes, but for everybody. And though they don't know it when something and/or someone first tries to eat or murder them, it will take Christopher and Mal working together to stop it. If even they can.

Christopher has just found out he's next in line to serve as guardian of a portal between the non-magical world and the Archipelago when he rescues a drowning baby griffin, the last of its kind in the world. A short while later, Mal emerges dripping wet from the watery gateway between the two realms. Girl recruits boy to help. They go back to her world together to face the dangers awaiting them, including a very determined murderer, fanged and clawed creatures both small and gigantic, heartbreaking betrayals and devastating loss. They are joined on their quest by some fascinating characters, and they meet quite a few others along the way – I'm not here to spoil these wonderful surprises for you – but the scenery, creatures, personalities and dramatic encounters are all portrayed in a vivid, beautiful style.

I loved each of the main characters at first sight, and I loved Rundell's writing. Up to a certain point, I stuck sticky notes in the page margins to mark places where I thought her writing particularly sparkled with originality, but I gave up doing that after a while because the number of examples was growing out of control. I also stuck a sticky note or two in some of Ashley Mackenzie's striking page illustrations. She shares with Rundell a knack for seeing things differenly and portraying them from unexpected angles. Here's one of a few quotes I selected: "The man who stood above them was the kind of vast that makes other large men look petite and ballerina-esque." Or how about: "(The sky) was a blue so blue that it made all other blues look like they had been only the practice for this one shining sky." Or one character's comment: "Adventurers tend to smell. The great epic tales stank, I think, more than the historians give them credit for." There's a description somewhere of Mal as a walking battleground, stalking forward with such fierce determination. And when Mal appears at a crucial moment, "the iron spike that was (Christopher's) heart unfurled and became a victory flag." Things like that show Rundell to be a writer who thinks through every sentence and doesn't settle for saying what thousands of writers have said before.

It's a level of excellence that captivates the imagination and hits the heart hard with feelings ranging from tenderness to horror, from grief to joy. I'm calling it: I think this is the best book I've read this year.

This seems to be the first book in a series, set to continue in September 2025 with The Poisoned King. Katherine Rundell is also the author of Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms, Rooftoppers, The Wolf Wilder, The Explorer, One Christmas Wish, The Good Thieves, The Zebra's Great Escape and Into the Jungle: Stories for Mowgli.

512. Winter Psalm

It's been a while since I've added a new hymn to my next hymn-book project. Looking back, the last one was this Summer Psalm. So, how about a seasonal hymn in direct contrast to that? I'll get back to you at a later date about what tune I decide to pair with it. Meanwhile, here's one present-day psalmist's idea of how to turn the gloom of winter into a song of praise. What do you think?

Be it said in the waning of the days:
To God be praise.
From the heart that for warmth and solace aches,
To Him who takes—
Yea, to Him who supplies our every need—
Our hymns proceed.

From bare fields, from our hard and silent ground,
Our hymns resound.
For the seed that in deathly stillness rests,
Our faith attests:
At an hour when the voice of hope lies dumb,
New life will come.

At an hour when no shade was e'er so deep,
When all men sleep,
Christ will come with a heaven-rending flash
And cymbal crash,
Waking all and renewing everything
To joyful spring.

Till that hour, for the waning of the days,
To God be praise.
For the warmth of communion, gathered round
His gospel's sound,
For His still calling Spirit, and for rest,
His name be blest.

(Public domain photo taken by William Wesen)

The Spellshop

The Spellshop
by Sarah Beth Durst
Recommended Ages: 13+

Kiela has spent most of her adult life holed up in the stacks at the great library in the capital city of Alyssium, minding spellbooks whose use is strictly regulated by imperial law. She isn't very sociable; her best friend is a sentient spider plant named Caz. But then the revolutionaries defenstrate the emperor and start burning things, and Kiela and Caz take what books they can save and flee to the island where she was born, far from the center of civilization. There she hopes to be left alone, but almost immediately she gets swept into social connections with islanders who, in some cases, remember her up to about age 9, and who in one case starts to stir un-sought-after desires.

Life on the island of Caltrey rapidly grows more complicated for Kiela. She discovers that there is a need for the magic that the empire has stopped providing. There is an imbalance in the magic throughout the Crescent Isles, resulting in blighted orchards, fountains run dry, infertile merhorses (technically hippocampi) and a decline in the local fishing industry. People are hungry. The winged cats that live on the rooftops have become scrawny. And the once vibrant island is slipping into ruin as magic storms rage, unchecked by the imperial wizards who used to protect the outer reaches of the empire. Despite her misgivings – revolution or not, she doesn't know whether homespun magic has become legal again – Kiela tries to help, learning a few small spells, such as one to restore the health of trees, for starters. And she opens a jam shop as a cover for her real business.

But of course, the charade can't last for long. Bad luck, the next person whose sailboat wrecks off the coast of Caltrey turns out to be an imperial inspector, devoted to sniffing out unlawful magic. And even bigger dangers follow in procession, threatening Kiela's new feeling of belonging, her first few non-vegetable friendships and her blooming romance with a studly merhorse farmer whose kindness started opening her heart from Day 1.

I'd give this book full marks, except that late in the narrative, it starts dropping in artifacts of the sexual/gender politics of this precise moment in the decline and fall of western civilization. I'm not saying I won't read a book with gay subplots (I've read plenty of them) but the one(s) in this book comes across as surplus to requirements. Clearly, this novel takes place in a magical world outside the historical continuity of ours, so it would be silly to speak of anachronisms, but the impression that this book is set in a pre-industrial, technologically pre-modern era – with ships powered by sail, for instance – occasionally clashes with references to advanced scientific theories and a character (albeit a cactus) who declares their preferred pronouns. It's just a bit too much water carrying for the bleeding-edge politics of the moment to suit my taste, and I fear it will leave this book looking horribly dated a few years from now.

Apart from that quibble, I'll say this for The Spellshop: It creates a vivid, vibrant world with characters and issues your heart will ache for. It has a heartwarming community, a sweet love story, snappy dialogue, and magical creatures to marvel at. A mild Adult Content Advisory and a similarly mild Occult Content Advisory may be in order, for choosy readers and their parents, but the risk is worth it.

I've only read two books by Sarah Beth Durst before this – Ice and Into the Wild – but I've had a very positive impression of her as a fantasy writer up to this point. Her other works include a companion to the latter, Out of the Wild; a pair of books, The Lost and The Missing; the "Queens of Renthia" quartet; a sendup of teen vampire romances called Drink, Slay, Love; and some 20 other novels with such titles as Enchanted Ivy, The Girl Who Could Not Dream, Journey Across the Hidden Islands, The Stone Girl's Story, Fire and Heist, Race the Sands, The Bone Maker, The Shelterlings, Spy Ring and, coming in 2025, The Enchanted Greenhouse.

Ivy Cube Tutorial

The Ivy Cube is another corner-turning specimen in the vast Rubik's Cube family of 3D puzzle games, roughly akin to the Dino Cube and the Redi Cube. But instead of the Dino Cube's structure, being made up entirely of edge pieces, or the Redi Cube having corners and edges, each of the Ivy Cube's six sides has one center – in the abstract, I suppose, shaped like a leaf, but certainly not an ivy leaf – and two, um, corner-edge pieces that each wrap around two edges of the side. The centers are single-color pieces; the edge-corners are three-colored pieces.

This raises the interesting fact that not all corners of the Ivy Cube have the same turning ability. There are four vertices around which you can pivot a combination of three centers and one corner piece while holding the rest of the cube in place; and then there are four vertices where three of those moving sections intersect and overlap, but that only "move" in and of themselves in the sense of holding the opposite vertex in place and turning around it. The moving sections (each one vertex plus three centers) add up to one-eighth of a sphere – what would be a sphere embedded inside a larger cube made of eight Ivy Cubes, with a diameter the length of one Ivy Cube edge. And the puzzle is ingeniously designed so that four such one-eighth spheres overlap each other from alternating vertices of the Ivy Cube.

It's a strangely beautiful, thought-provoking design – but it also limits the number of ways you can scramble it and the difficulty of unscrambling it. It makes you think about ways it could be improved, such as having those hemi-semi-demispheres dialing around all eight vertices, as in the Super Ivy Cube:

Here are a few more variants, just as a small sample of how many ways Cubedom branches out from the Ivy Cube's curvy-cut concept. First, the Evil Eyes Ivy Cube, with pupil-like dimples inside the admittedly eye-shaped centers, and the Maple Ivy Cube, whose indents don't make the centers look any more like maple leaves than ivy leaves:

Then, the Fisher Ivy Cube, on which the eye shapes wrap around the edges in a larger-scale symmetry:

Which leads us to the Raptor Cube, shown here in a pillowy configuration ...

... and finally, some Raptor variants whose connection to the Ivy Cube is less apparent – namely, the Circle Raptor Cube, the Mastor Raptor Cube, the Raptor Skewb and the Mastor Raptor Skewb.

Of all of these, the only one that makes my mouse-button finger itch to visit Speed Cube Shop is the Super Ivy Cube. Maybe after Christmas, when my finances settle down! Back, addiction, back!

According to Ruwix, the Ivy Cube, also known (duh) as the Eye Cube, was invented by Eitan Cher. The Ruwix wiki also describes the Ivy Cube as a Skewb missing half of its corners, or a cube Pyraminx, and calculates that it can be scrambled into 29,160 different configurations. In searching for fastest-solve records, I found some evidence that a certain Gunner Jeppson solved the Ivy Cube in just under 13 seconds; however, another source (albeit AI) claims a Malaysian cuber solved it blindfolded in under 6 seconds. I give up. It doesn't take me seconds to solve it; it only takes me minutes. And I didn't need algorithms or a solution guide or a tutorial; again, like the Dino and the Redi, I picked it up, scrambled it and messed around with it for a bit, before solving it almost by accident.

There isn't a sanctioned speed-cubing event for the Ivy Cube, and so there also isn't an online scramble generator for it, or anything close enough to it (because of that limitation on the vertices that you can turn) to be able to apply a different puzzle's scrambler. So, what I do is just fiddle around until it's about as scrambled as I can get it, more or less aiming to have three different colors on each side, or close to that. Vexingly, it seems to start trying to solve itself the longer you continue trying to scramble it. So it really doesn't pay to overwork this thing. Here's the result of my best effort:

The step-by-step procedure really only has one step: You solve one side at a time. Here I took an opportunity (above) to match the green center with its edge on the adjacent side.

Then I dialed the other green edge around until it came into position to complete the green side.

In this next series of photos, try to follow along as I do a similar procedure on the yellow side.

Taking stock of the remaining pieces of the puzzle, I find the blue side easy to complete.

Now let's work on white for a bit.

But wait a minute! Hold that thought! With the orange center over here ...

... I'm only two moves away from solving orange, green and yellow!

Which puts me within one counterclockwise twist of completing the solve:

Basically, the only trick to this is figuring out how those one-eighth-sphere sections move and what it takes to dial a center in with its desired edge. And because those corner pieces are also edge pieces wrapping around three sides of the cube, once you've brought one center in line with its corner-edge, you've gone a good way toward solving even more of the puzzle. You'll be wondering how to bring this bit over to that side when, all of a sudden, you'll realize you're two moves away from solving the whole cube.

So, why is this even fun? Well, besides the fact that having a cube you can solve in just a few turns without mastering algorithms or strategies – which may be just the boost that a reluctant cuber needs – and those old chestnuts, the interesting feel in the hands and satisfying clicking-sound – the ivy Cube is just an opportunity to admire a beautiful, functional, geometrically sexy design. And also, as I've shown, it's a gateway to even more interesting puzzles. Also, look into its eye. Let its eye look into you. You will acquire the Ivy Cube. And on the count of three, you will wake up and remember nothing. One. Two ...

Redi Cube Tutorial

You've already been introduced the Redi Cube, whose scramble generator we used for the Dino Cube. Here it is again: a Rubik's Cube variant where each side has four edges, four corners but no center, and where turns pivot around the vertices, taking one corner piece together with the three adjacent edges.

The Redi Cube was invented in 2009 by Oskar van Deventer. It's pretty easy to solve, despite being capable of over 1.5 trillion different configurations. According to Grubiks (which suggests a different approach to solving it, though not following it hasn't particularly hampered me), the unofficial record for fastest solve of this unsanctioned puzzle cube is 3.95 seconds.

Like the Dino Cube, the Redi Cube has its share of spinoffs and adjacent puzzles, such as (below) the Barrel Redi Cube, the Phoenix Cube (which is more edge-turning than vertex-turning), the Tins Cube (which seems to have more layers going one way than another), and the Windmill Cube (also kinda edge-turning, for what it's worth). Finally, there's the Fadi Cube, a.k.a. the Mosaic Cube, a 4x4x4 version of the Redi Cube that also shares the same inventor.

Obviously, if you can use the Redi Cube's scrambler on the Dino Cube, the two puzzles must be somewhat similar. Sure, it's another three-layered puzzle (just see the photo below) whose moves rotate around four axes that cut through diagonally opposite vertices.

Move notation, which I tend to forget about as soon as I'm done scrambling the Redi Cube, is once again best thought of while facing the cube edge-on, starting with white up, green to the left of front and red to the right. So here (clockwise moves only; imagine the "prime" moves for yourself) are examples of ...

F:

D:

L:

R (believe it or not, that's yellow coming up from the bottom):

UL:

UR:

U:

And B (looking down from above):

Now let's get started, after following the scramble pattern below:

STEP 1: Solve the white side. The new wrinkle with the Redi Cube, compared to the Dino Cube, is that in addition to two-colored edge pieces, you also have to contend with three-colored corner pieces. So let's move this red-white edge (at top left) next to the red-white (and green) corner at right:

Now it would be nice to put a white-green edge below this white-red-green corner.

I found it somewhere and maneuvered it into position to dial into that slot.

The blue-white edge and blue-red-white corner are hanging out together below the white-green-red corner.

Though I broke the red-green edge out of its slot to do so, I dialed both those corners (blue-red first, then green-red) onto the same side.

This wasn't just the best option to put those to corners together on the same side; it was the only option. Something you might notice by the time you've gotten this far in solving the Redi Cube is that you can't really make the corners go anywhere. You can change their orientation, but not their position relative to each other. The puzzle, it turns out, is all about swapping edges in and out of the lots between those corners, to line up the right colors in the right orientation. So, confronted with this case – where both the green-white and the orange-white edges are next to the orange-green-white corner – you have to do some critical thinking about which piece needs to be taken out of position and put back on on a different side of the vertex.

Yes, class, that would be the green-white edge. First, let's rotate that corner to put the green-white edge out of danger of messing up the neighboring bit of solved puzzle. Then dial it out of that corner entirely; rotate the corner into position to take green-white back in its correct orientation; dial green-white back in; and restore the corner to show your progress on solving the white side.

Here, the blue-orange-white corner seems to be twisted out of true with relation to the orange-white and blue-white edges. But again, for all practical purposes, The Corner Is Always Right. It's the edges that have to be taken out and put back in facing the right way.

I didn't talk you through those moves; hopefully the photos sufficiently illustrated what I did. And frankly, it isn't about dictating specific formulas or carrying out exact algorithms; it's about thinking which edges need to be swapped out and swapped back in. Oh, look! I found that green-red edge again, and when I dial it back into place, it brings the green-red-yellow edge with it, and we're already started on STEP 2: Solving the yellow side, opposite to white.

Here are a couple of corners (yellow-orange-green and red-blue-yellow) that have drawn some edges meant for each other into their orbit:

A single twist brings the yellow-green edge home.

Then we pivot that corner to match up with the yellow side and reassess:

Oh, look! That orange-yellow edge can dial right into place.

Let's pull that yellow-blue edge off the top and put it next to the yellow-blue-orange corner; then pivot around that same corner to put the orange-green edge where it belongs.

Upon reassessing the situation again, we find there are only three edges out of place – red-blue, yellow-orange and (around the next corner) blue-orange.

Now, let's think about this. The yellow-orange edge in the first picture is where the blue-orange edge in the second picture belongs. Meanwhile, the red-blue edge in the first picture goes where the blue-orange piece is, and the yellow-orange piece goes where the red-blue edge is. Hmm. Let's try to get that red-blue edge out of there. First, I pivot around the yellow-orange-blue corner to bring the red-blue edge closer to the side it belongs on.

Then I dial blue-orange up (from the right) into its correct slot:

Then I pivot the blue-orange-yellow corner again to bring red-blue into place to swap with orange-yellow:

And then I'm just one twist away from a complete solve:

Once again, the Redi Cube is very much like the Dino Cube, in that you're only really moving edge pieces around. The main difference is that you also have to worry about their orientation with respect to the corner pieces. But if you think through what needs to go where, and how, you'll get there with maybe a little trial and error. Or maybe, when you think you're half a dozen moves from the end, you'll make two quick moves and discover with surprise that the puzzle is solved. Yeah, it's one of those. I didn't need a tutorial to learn how to solve this one, either. But I share because I love. And there are times when I find this puzzle particularly satisfying to turn in my hands, to look at, to feel, to scramble and unscramble. For some reason, there's just an endorphin hit when the right piece goes into the right slot. And those corners make it that little bit more interesting than the Dino Cube.