Edward Tulane...

[plumtreeblossom]

Last night beowabbit and I went to a reading night at a friend's house, and someone read us a chapter from a wonderful book I'd not heard of before: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, by Kate DiCamillo. It's a beautiful and moving novella for children, equally enjoyable for adults. I fell absolutely in love with it. Once it got passed around to me, the book's owner eventually had to ask for it back because I was completely absorbed in it and ignoring the next readers.

It's the tale of a dearly beloved china rabbit doll, who needs to learn how to love back. The miraculous journey in the title takes him there.

It was a journey to Chinatown this morning with my own beloved r/wabbit that led us to the book kiosk in South Station, where there was a lone copy of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane that he wanted to buy for me as a gift. I asked him to sign it for me. He did, and this copy of the book will be my treasure forever. We each went home in our own directions on the Red Line, and I spent the afternoon inhaling the whole novella cover-to-cover.

Those who have been reading my LJ for a while know that I don't generally do book reviews. Usually, I'm glad that you're reading what you're reading, and I'm glad that I'm reading what I'm reading, but it's seldom important to me if our reading lists interface or not. This is a rare-beyond-rare instance wherein I genuinely hope that you do read this book, or read it to your children, or have your grown children read it to you, at some point in your life before you're gone. Things take time, as our china-and-wire protagonist shows us.

I think beowabbit knew it was my time to read this story.

Comments

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

I was utterly, utterly shocked when it did not win the Newbery this year.

It was a wonderful audiobook production, too, btw.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was because she's won it twice before, for other books....

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

Well, she only won the medal once; the first was an honor -- and it's not supposed to matter, and people have even won it (the medal) two years in a row. Of course, just because it's not supposed to matter, people probably have it in the back of their minds anyway -- but she didn't even get an *honor.* Three of the four prizes went to books that the Horn Book (my review publication) didn't see fit to give full reviews in the magazine. The Newbery awards over the past several years have frankly just been confusing to many people in the field -- it seems like they keep going to these books that are just not that amazing.

It may be the "committee effect" -- the voting works towards a common denominator/compromise, so books that some people love but others really hate sometimes just don't make it, and the prize goes to some inoffensive book nobody can object to.

Of course, I say that, but this year's prizewinner had the word "scrotum" on the first page and stirred up a tempest-in-a-teapot of controversy. So the picture may not be quite as bleak as I painted it. But still, it feels like a trend.