The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman

I was listening to this and bells just kept ringing in my head of suddenly remembering this book. So apparently I'd read it as a kid and a few things had stuck in my brain (like the dancing bear), but I wouldn't have remembered it if you'd asked me. This was a super short story about a spoiled prince who runs away and makes his whipping boy come with him, and all of the scrapes they get into. I think this is one my boys would enjoy being read to them. I liked it well enough too. It was cute and fun, but I'm not sure I feel like it deserved to win the Newbery.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T. J. Klune

I really enjoyed 95% of this book. I thought the house and the children were just adorable and Klune's characterization for each child was very distinctive and somehow made you care about them. It made it easy to see why Linus Baker couldn't help but care for them. I also liked Linus's character and how he was so straight-laced and serious, but deep down cared about other people. I just felt like Linus's ability to say everything perfectly whenever he needed to help a child was almost unbelievable and it was annoying how perfectly everything went. I was also annoyed that Zoe was there making the food for this house of orphans--like Arthur would not have been able to do that, so they needed to have a woman there to provide their meals. And it was extremely unrealistic to me how at the end of the book, they are excited to bring in another child without taking any second to pause and think about how hard that will be for them. Clearly the author has never had a home full of six children. But, of course, these were very minor qualms and it overall was delightful. 

Treasure Island (abridged) by Robert Louis Stevenson

I really wanted to read Treasure Island aloud to the boys, but I also didn't want to lose their interest and bore them to death by reading the original one to them. So we ended up reading this kid-friendly abridged version, which I think was absolutely perfect for them. It was much easier for them to follow and much more exciting since it cut to the adventurous parts. They were extremely invested and excited about it each time and it was fun for them to imagine a story about pirates. I had read the book years and years ago but completely forgotten what happened, so it was interesting for me too. I thought this was a great book to read to them, and I'm glad I ended up going with the abridged version so that we could move on to something else quickly. 

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz

This is something completely different from all of the normal middle-grade novels that usually win the Newbery Award. It's a set of monologues that depict different children of a medieval village, meant for children in a class to be able to perform as they learn about the Middle Ages. I thought it was a very strange idea and was not interested in reading this, but I saw several reviews saying that this was very good as an audiobook, so I ended up listening to it and reading it at the same time. It turned out to be very well done and fun to read and listen to. Each monologue is from a different character, and they each stand out as very distinctive and individual characters. I was pleasantly surprised by it, but I don't understand it as a Newbery winner. I don't think any child would ever pick this up and read it for pleasure, or even read more of it than their one monologue they were assigned if they were doing it for school. I think this was a perfectly fine book, but it should not have won the Newbery award. And that seems to be a pretty common sentiment based on everyone's reviews on Goodreads.

Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions and We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I wanted to read more of Adichie's works after reading Americanah, so I requested these from the library. I thought they were full-length books, but turned out they were super short little booklets, which I'm not going to complain about because I was able to read both of them in about an hour this evening. Still, they packed a punch and were filled with a lot of wisdom about feminism. I especially liked Dear Ijeawele, because it was specifically about teaching your daughter to be feminist, and I really appreciated the reminders about how to raise a girl to value her own worth. I feel like this one especially would be worth reading again and again. 

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham

This is the most recent Newbery winner that I've read, and I thought it was pretty good. The subject matter was really interesting--it's basically a biography of Nathaniel Bowditch, who used math to figure out how to navigate the seas when there was no real reliable way to do it. I thought Latham did a good job translating the facts of his life (I'm guessing there was mostly fact in there) into a coherent storyline that was easy to read and interesting to younger readers. It definitely was stilted at times. But I think kids would enjoy reading about his adventures, especially if they're into ship/sailing stories. He definitely is a good example of someone pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and succeeding in life, by constantly studying and self-educating even when he couldn't go to school.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I've had this book on my to-read list for 3.5 years, and actually on my bedside stand to read for at least three months, and it feels so good to finally read it! I think it was worth the wait. The story is about Ifemelu and Obinze, who grow up in Nigeria and both emigrate to the U.S. and the U.K., respectively. They promise to stay in touch and in love, but life as an immigrant is harder than they thought, which makes them fall apart over years and then decades of being away from each other. But then they both return to Nigeria... 

I think the main thing that deterred me for the last few months, at least, was its length--it was almost 600 pages long (although it didn't look THAT long--the pages were thin) and it did take me a long time to get through it. I feel like this book almost had two books in one--one book about the love story between Ifemelu and Obinze and how they fell apart and come back together, and one about Ifemelu's experiences and view of race and racism in America. I really enjoyed the whole thing--both books were good--but it did feel really long and it did drag a little bit. Most of the book was from Ifemelu's perspective in America, and she was a race blogger in America, so there were a lot of conversations and observations about race. It all was very good, but it didn't really seem to go together with the overall goal of this main story about Ifemelu and Obinze. I think a lot of it could have been cut out without sacrificing the overall storyline, and I feel like it maybe should have been trimmed a little bit. But overall, it was so good. I've found that I really love immigrant stories and learning about different countries and cultures and how it all translates to America, but I've never read one about someone coming here from Africa. I loved reading about Nigeria and what it was like living there and why Ifemelu wanted to go back. 

I felt like the most potent part of the book was where Obinze was talking about the choicelessness he felt living in Nigeria, where he had dreams and wanted to go other places but had no ability to decide his own future. There were so, so many amazing, excellent quotes and thoughts throughout the book that I wish I had gone through and underlined as I read. It was very well-written, very funny, and very thought-provoking. Everything I was hoping to get out of my reading life this year. (I went to the library website and requested all her other books, so I will hopefully be reading more of her stuff soon.)