Children's Books discussion

Come join us to discuss the Newbery Medal Winner from 1963:

It's Like This, Cat by Emily Cheney Neville

Neville's acceptance speech (avl. in Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books: 1956-1965 With Acceptance Papers, Biographies & Related Material Chiefly from the Horn Book Magazine) is interesting. It took her two years to write this book, in part because she was a young mother of small children, and in part because she had enough experience writing and getting rejection letters to be able to know when something she wrote was or wasn't "right." There's also a wonderful anecdote from her childhood about the secret inner life of children, and an enlightening exploration of the difference between children's and teens' literature.

When I read this as a child I was disappointed that it wasn't more about the cat. And I didn't get much out of it. It seemed to me more of 'teen' book.

I wonder what I'll think now.
My local library still has the classic cover:

The title sounds familiar but I did not read it. I did not read about boys in elementary school. EW! I know the school library and probably the classroom library had it too. I'm sure the public libraries have it too.

True story:

I read this book on my own and fell in love with the beach scene. He goes months without seeing the girl, then finally the day comes around, the weather's bad, he goes anyway, she's standing there facing the sea with her hair blowing in the wind. It's a great image, and it blinded me to everything else that was wrong in the book.

My wife had a crazy delivery with our first child that resulted in me being out of school for 2 1/2 weeks. I left about two days after starting this as a read aloud. So the sub got stuck reading this random and frustrating book to a group of puzzled 5th graders. They had a lot of questions when I came back.

Wow Phil, great story. Ok, now my interest is piqued and I'll move it up to the top of the pile on the nightstand....

Not surprising that this inspired your students questions, Phil! It reads like historical fiction now. Think of all that roaming about the city this 14 yo boy did. And the girl, Mary, too. And encyclopedias, no internet, no portable phone. Public schools perceived as good enough for a lawyer's son.

But I can see why I didn't care for it when I was young. I certainly didn't understand the friendship with Mary... was she special, or not? ... all I knew about love was like my parents or like in fairy tales, and it never occurred to me that they could be just friends.

I don't know if the episodic nature bothered me then. I like it very much now. Things happen, we have minor adventures, time goes by, something else happens.... life usually doesn't have a dramatic arc and stories don't need to have one either.

A contemporary blurb on the back of my edition from the "Christian Science Monitor" says that the urban setting for this is a refreshing contrast to the more typical "idyllic countryside." It also says the book is for boys. I'm not sure that I agree with that. I think it's more for a certain kind of reader, and that kind of reader is at least as likely to be a girl as a boy.

Anyway, I think it does portray NYC well. And it's interesting to see a 14 year-old boy's pov as he realizes that the world isn't all about him. He learns his true r'ship with a friend he took for granted, finds a couple of new friends, learns responsibility, meets a girl and finds out that at least some girls are real people not just annoying flirts, and discovers that there are all sorts of families & he's lucky to have the one he's got.

Is it Newbery worthy? Imo, almost. Compared to the honor books, The Loner (I never heard of it) and Rascal (which is apparently too entertaining to be significant, according to most newbery committees' opinions that we've been subject to), yeah, I can see why it got the medal. But I do wonder what else was published that year, and why it wasn't a stronger year.

I, too, was ignorant of The Loner until recently. But I read it last year and was amazed. Personally, I'd go with it over It's Like This, Cat (which I think is a good but not great book that was more on my radar due to medal rather than honor status).

One thing I might propose is that Cat is a book that was more "now" than The Loner, which could have been written 10, 20, or more years in the past. So I'd agree with the Monitor on the urban setting point - in the mid-1960s this was a trend (even Lois Lenski did High Rise Secret in 1966).

I've read a couple other ECN books and found them quite good too. The one other Wier book I read was very different from The Loner, and overall, it seemed unremarkable.

Oh good; I'll look forward to next month's honor books then. Assuming I can find The Loner... I'd better start looking....

And I should say, I am also planning to look for more by ECN.

I have read It's Like This, Cat twice in the past and liked it both times. However, even though I did like it, I still don't remember very much about it, even after 2 readings. Maybe because it was episodic in style.

That could be, Beverly, I agree.

So I looked for the competition, and it looks like the best* books are from outside the US. The Green Laurel is Australian, I Am David is Danish, Time of Trial, Stig of the Dump, and The Moon of Gomrath are English, I think By the Great Horn Spoon! is probably worth an honor, too, though, and it's American.

* By 'best' I mean to include - well-rated here on GR, and/or still in print and/or reprinted in many editions and/or historical fiction likely to appeal to the committee. I've not read any of those nor heard of most of them, but they're all going on my to-read lists!

Looking at the Horn Book Fanfare and ALSC Best Books lists from 1963, there are a few notables. My top vote would go to The Moon by Night, the second in Madeleine L'Engle's Austin family series. I've not read Harry Behn's The Faraway Lurs, but have frequently seen positive mentions of it. Roosevelt Grady by Louisa R. Shotwell is a book that was often praised at the time and in subsequent surveys of notable children's books on blacks in America, but has now been largely forgotten. In terms of nonfiction, Anne Ophelia T. Dowden's Look at a Flower. and Katherine B. Shippen's Heritage of Music are two that we own and love.

Stalwarts like Ruth Sawyer, Elizabeth Coatsworth, Sulamith Ish-Kishor, Elizabeth Borton de Treviño, and Jean Fritz had books published that year, but I wouldn't say they were their finest efforts.

I definitely believe some of the best books to hit the US market in 1963 were imports - The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, The Return of the Twelves, Hakon of Rogen's Saga, and Castors away! are all wonderful.

Thank you! That's terrific information. Any time you want to add a similar post to other Newbery winners' threads, I'd welcome it!

I happen to own a copy of Roosevelt Grady, found in a Little Free Library. I will look for some of the others, too.

I've added background to the first post of this thread (sorry that I forgot to earlier.)

I really enjoyed this book. It may have been a contemporary story when it was written, but it definitely reads more as historical fiction now. This book is a series of episodic tales of a year in the life of a 14 year old boy living in New York City. I liked the way some of the tales had big stories and some were just everyday happenings - very similar to everyday life for kids even now. I'm not sure that kids today would enjoy reading this story - it may not have enough action/adventure/romance to grab them. Of course, this is an over-generalization; I am sure there are kids today that would still enjoy reading this story.

Yeah, no 'love' (infatuation) triangle, or dead parents, or fantasy, either. But if repackaged it might appeal just on the basis of being different. I'm glad you liked it.

Cheryl wrote: "Yeah, no 'love' (infatuation) triangle, or dead parents, or fantasy, either. But if repackaged it might appeal just on the basis of being different. I'm glad you liked it."

It definitely could. I get so frustrated with a lot of middle grade books these days. It seems like if it is "realistic" it has to have some big theme that the main character needs to overcome - which isn't always bad but sometimes just gets to be too much! I remember when I got to middle school just how disappointed I was by all the books/TV shows/movies I had seen depicting it as such a dramatic, life-changing time. It was just more of the same - school, home, friends. Not to say big things don't happen, but they are the exception, not the norm. I think we sometimes set kids up for disappointment, or give them excuses to be more dramatic than they need to be (hormones notwithstanding) because of how media portrays 12-18 year olds.

I agree. When I was a 'tween, I loved ordinary family stories like The Middle Moffat and all those, for example.

There are plenty of kids today who feel the same way. Not everyone is hooked on the media nonsense. Absent those external stimulants (or are they narcotics?), kids are still just kids, same as ever. And those kids deserve good books too - and it would be nice if some of them could be new books. (BTW, The Moffats are huge here. Not sure exactly why, but after first reading them all aloud, there are regular requests for the audiobooks.)

I just read Roosevelt Grady and tbh am surprised it didn't garner at least an Honor this year. I, personally, was a little bored, but I can def. see the appeal to many children (esp. those of the sixties) and to teachers and to the Newbery committee.

Hmm.