[andracill Posts: 5,846 Status: Offline Worlds within...screaming to get out! WWW]

My daughter's class is reading The Westing Game -- one of my all-time favorite books, which just happens to have won the Newbery ages ago. What I love about great books like these is how kids from all times can get the same wonderful entertainment from them. E's loving it

Other of my favorites include The Dark is Rising (I love the whole series, but this book definitely started my love for them and for Susan Cooper's writing, in general); Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth; and A Swiftly Tilting Planet (I love this entire series too, of course, but STP is my favorite).

What about you? What older winners (and honor books) remain your favorites today?

[Pons Posts: 2,641 Status: Offline]

When I think of a book I wish I'd written, I think of HOLES. It's just flat out amazing.
I also love A YEAR DOWN YONDER by Richard Peck. It is laugh out loud funny and so touching.

When I was in fourth grade (long ago) my teacher read Island of the Blue Dolphins to us a bit at a time. My nine-year-old self was terrified by her aloneness, amazed at her courage, and, when Rontu died (her dog) I sat at my desk and wept.

[mrh Posts: 4,769 Status: Online www.marciahoehne.com WWW]

Oh, I LOVE Richard Peck, especially everything including LONG WAY FROM CHICAGO and after.

Recent-ish NBA -- The Penderwicks. Anything Penderwicks! I'm so excited that a new one is coming out.

Thinking back-back, I really loved ROLL OF THUNDER, HEAR MY CRY and other books by Mildred D. Taylor.

THE BRONZE BOW and THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND.

GOOD MASTERS, SWEET LADIES is just brilliant.

THE WESTING GAME, anything by Madeleine L'Engle -- oh, there are just too many to name.

[Barbara Etlin Posts: 2,255 Status: Offline WWW]

HOOT by Carol Hiaasen
 
THE VIEW FROM SATURDAY by E.L. Konigsberg

WALK TWO MOONS by Sharon Creech

MRS. FRISBY AND THE RATS OF NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien

THE WEDNESDAY WARS by Gary D. Schmidt

A SINGLE SHARD by Linda Sue Park

[Vonna Posts: 1,799 Status: Offline WWW]

My favorite Newbery winner is MRS. FRISBY AND THE RATS OF NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien
I also loved
A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L'Engle
KING OF THE WIND by Marguerite Henry
THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND by
SUMMER OF THE SWANS by Besty Byars
THE DARK IS RISING by Susan Cooper
THE GRAVEYARD BOOK by Neil Gaiman

An Honor book I loved more than most of the winners was THE EVOLUTION OF CALPURNIA TATE  by Jacqueline Kelly. I also loved ELLA ENCHANTED by Gail Carson Levine.
And so many more!  

[andracill Posts: 5,846 Status: Offline Worlds within...screaming to get out! WWW]

I actually didn't read The Witch of Blackbird Pond until I was a teacher (and I assigned that book to my students) -- but I definitely would place that on my favorites list.

Another one I read for the first time in my 20s and really liked was The Blue Sword.

I haven't read many of the recent winners (I think the most recent is When You Reach Me, which I enjoyed but didn't *love* like I do the older ones). I wonder how much our childhood impressions color our delight in these books? I think, for me, I'll always have that 'first love' feeling for my childhood favorites that will overcome any I read as an adult.

[olmue Posts: 3,582 Status: Offline WWW]

Someone asked me on Newbery Day what I thought of recent vs. older classics. (She was of the opinion that, the older, the better.) I had a look at the complete list, and huh. My favorites mostly come from the past 20 years--and the 1960s (when I wasn't even alive). Some of my favorites include:

A Wrinkle in Time
Savvy (I'm reading this to my 6YO son right now and he is LOVING it)
Rules
Al Capone Does My Shirts
The House of the Scorpion
The Thief
The Blue Sword (love the orange juice opener--and the different-cultures thing)
The Perilous Gard (this one ages really well!)
The High King
The Witch of Blackbird Pond

I *like* other ones, but these are probably the ones I've read and reread the most. You can see a strong element of fantasy in there...

[andracill Posts: 5,846 Status: Offline Worlds within...screaming to get out! WWW]

WEll, the oldest one I've read is The Cat Who Went to Heaven, by Coatsworth (1931).

Those I've read more than once (in order of oldest to most recent) -- and the * means I would count them among my all-time favorites:
The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Speare
A Wrinkle in Time, by L'Engle *
Up a Road Slowly, by Hunt
From the Mixed-up Files..., by Konigsburg *
Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth..., by Konigsburg *
Enchantress from the Stars, by Engdahl
The Headless Cupid, by Snyder *
The Dark is Rising, by Cooper *
The Grey King, by Cooper
The Westing Game, by Raskin *
A Ring of Endless Light, by L'Engle *
Jacob Have I Loved, by Paterson
Sarah, Plain and Tall, by MacLachlan * -- first read as an adult

I've read a couple of the more recent winners once, but obviously the ones re-read and loved were those written 1981 or earlier, other than SPT (1986). For me, I think it does have a lot to do with that wonder of discovering a great new book as a kid or young teen...perhaps I'm more jaded now.

[Marissa Doyle Posts: 2,975 Status: Offline Charles Bewitched: out now! WWW]

Interesting question, Robin!

I read most of the ones I adore as a child.  The Witch of Blackbird Pond--OMG, I must have read it a dozen times in 6th grade! A Wrinkle in Time, The Dark is Rising (hmm--found these as a teen)...and most of all, The Perilous Gard.  I think that what delights me most about these books is that a phenomenon friends of mine on LibraryThing call "The Suck Fairy" hasn't touched them.  The Suck Fairy is that insidious, nasty sprite who takes books you'd adored in childhood, and somehow makes them terrible when you re-read them as an adult. 

Maybe we need to rename the Newbery the "Suck Fairy-proof Award of Excellence." 

[Pons Posts: 2,641 Status: Offline]

I also loved THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND. When I grew up, I found out I had an ancestor living in that town at the time the story is set. It made the book feel like it was written for me.

[andracill Posts: 5,846 Status: Offline Worlds within...screaming to get out! WWW]

Maybe we need to rename the Newbery the "Suck Fairy-proof Award of Excellence." 

Ha, love this!