The View from Saturday

I am so pleased that the title of this post is both cleverly appropriate AND the title of one of the Newbery books I have finished today! I finished The View from Saturday and The Midwife's Apprentice--I really enjoyed both of them!

I feel like I need to re-read Saturday because I know I missed some of the clever ways the author tied all of the little plots together...I was busy following the main line, and didn't pay close enough attention to the others! It was really enjoyable, and it was about (mainly) an Academic Challenge-type team made up of four sixth graders. The bulk of the book takes you through their matches and how they all ended up being on the team together. I did Academic Challenge when I was in middle school (oh so cool, VERY fun), so that's probably part of why I was so into the book! I read part of it while I was babysitting (during nap time for the little one, TV time for the older one), so I think that's why I feel that I didn't tie everything together in my head right. Interestingly, the author of this book (E.L. Konigsburg) also wrote From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, which I also liked a lot. She tells a story and, at the same time, says a lot about children and their feelings and experiences, which is pretty cool for a children's book author. Usually you only find those kinds of layers (a normal story and a commentary on something else) in older books (for example: in The Mixed-Up Files, the main story is about a girl and her brother who run away to a famous museum, but it is also about a girl who doesn't think she is important to anyone and how she finds out that she is...not exactly high literature, but more so than some I have read so far). Also, her first name is Elaine :)

**trivia: E.L. Konigsburg is the only author to have won the Newbery Medal and been one of the honor book authors in the same year. The Mixed-Up Files won the medal in 1968 and Jennifer, Hectate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth was an honor book the same year. I want to read the honor book, but I haven't yet!

The other book, The Midwife's Apprentice, is one that I think I will buy (I got it from the library to read today). It's historical, but tells a story that is actually really interesting, unlike A Gathering of Days, the last historical Newbery I read. It's the story of a girl who is homeless, and is taken in by the local midwife. She becomes an "apprentice" to the midwife, and she also makes friends with an animal, which I thought was one of the best parts of the story. I can't say much else about why I liked it without giving anything major away, but I really did...I read it in about an hour, it was that engrossing!

Erin and I went to Barnes and Noble today and browsed some of the Newbery winners they have on their shelves...Erin is a good sport. This is her shout out!