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#43 Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson (1980)
47 points

I adored this one as a teenager; it spoke profoundly to me. I read it as an adult, and it still spoke profoundly to me. I’ve found that’s rare, since my adult self has different sensibilities than my teenage self, and because it’s rare, I cherish it all the more. – Melissa Fox

Such strong characters are here–those you love, those you hate, those you pity, and those you just want to smack a good one straight across the back o’ the head (i.e., Call). Wheeze is so incredibly real, so honest, and, amazingly enough, so is Caroline. Even when you hate her you don’t hate her. I cannot recommend this one highly enough. Read it. - Kristi Hazelrigg

Sing it, sister! - Susan Van Metre

And so we meet a book that makes the MOST impressive leap onto our list.  I could understand Okay for Now or Wonder not making the poll last time.  They hadn’t been published yet!  But Jacob Have I Loved isn’t exactly a spring chicken.  Yet here we are talking about it and somehow it has managed to leap 43 spots up and onto this list.  Fascinating!

The plot from Wikipedia reads, “The novel follows the story of the Bradshaws, a family who depends on the father, Truitt Bradshaw, and his crabbing/fishing business on his boat, the Portia Sue. Truitt’s two daughters, Sara Louise and Caroline, are twins, and Caroline has always been the favorite. She is prettier and more talented, and better at receiving more attention not only from their parents but also from others in the community.  The book traces Louise’s attempts to free herself from Caroline’s shadow, even as she grows into adulthood.”

It won the 1981 Newbery Medal beating out The Fledgling by Jane Langton and A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L’Engle.  I’d say that this was the right choice, particularly since neither of those other two books made our list.

Of course I confess that my favorite recap came from Jezebel a couple years ago.  She just synthesizes what is enjoyable for folks about the novel.  Here’s a taste:

“What’s astonishing about this book is how unflinching Paterson is about the pain Louise suffers by her second-best status without somehow devolving into V.C. Andrews territory (NOT that there’s anything wrong with that, OBVS) or making Louise’s frustration seem like anything but the unattractive, festering blister that it is. Yes, Louise’s fundamental rage ‘n pain is something that could probably be handled through a triple dose of CBT, Paxil and a round of family therapy nowadays. But the few minutes before Caroline exited the womb after her are, as Louise sees it, ‘the only time in my life I was ever the center of anyone’s attention.’ Louise is both the main proponent and victim of this belief, but it will take her until adulthood to realize that.”

I’ll grant the artist of that first book jacket this much.  You simply cannot look at that cover and not despise the glowing blond girl there.  She’s despicable.  I can’t even tell you why, she just is.

#44 Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt (2011)
45 points

Can’t get this book out of my head. There’s not one big lobbing story arc here. It’s a rollercoaster. Very high highs immediately followed by the lowest of lows. Coming in rapid fire. At one point I involuntarily yelled “noooooooooooo” right out loud. You know characters have captured your mind and heart when that happens. – Aaron Zenz

“Let me just say this right up front: Gary Schmidt was robbed. He deserved the 2012 Newbery. He earned it. This book was far and away the best book of the year. To not award it the gold was bad enough, but to completely snub it and not even give it an honor? Unforgivable. And I’ll sing it ’til my dyin’ day.

Schmidt has created an unforgettable character in Doug Swieteck. Bold, unsure, angry, loving, cocky, and humble, this young man is as dynamic as they come. As the book’s narrator, his voice is absolutely perfect. He is one of my favorite characters I’ve read in a long, long time. Even when he was snarky, I loved this kid. I found myself wondering what he grew up to do with his life. That doesn’t happen too often, so this boy really stayed with me. Great voice, and I’m not lyin’.

Schmidt can sure paint a villain. So what if his dad is a jerk who hangs out with stupid Ernie Eco too much? So what? (I’m still not sure whether I forgive Schmidt for Doug’s dad. What a… yeah. Wow.) I also admire the way characters changed as Doug grew. Or was it Doug who was changing and viewing them differently? There is not a flat character in the book (save one, but we never really meet him, just hear about him). Each member of Doug’s family has a surprise or two up his or her sleeve, as does Doug’s father’s boss, “”Mr. Big-Bucks-Ballard”", who emerges as an admirable and noble character.

Okay for Now is moving, funny, infuriating, and completely wonderful.” – Kristi Hazelrigg

Yeah, I could have cut Kristi’s words down, but why do so?  She puts the whole book in such a great light.

I bet you were wondering whether or not this would make the list or not. After all, if this year’s Newbery frontrunner Wonder by R.J. Palacio made our list, would memories allow last year’s frontrunner to make an appearance?  You betcha.  Our memories aren’t that short and the book was just that good.

The plot from my review reads, ” ‘You’re not always going to get everything you want, you know. That’s not what life is like.’ It’s not like the librarian Mrs. Merriam needs to tell Doug that. If any kid is aware that life is not a bed of roses, it’s Doug. Stuck in a family with a dad that prefers talking with his fists to his mouth, a sweet but put upon mom, a brother in Vietnam, and another one at home making his little brother’s life a misery, it’s not like Doug’s ever had all that much that’s good in his life. When he and his family move to Marysville, New York (herein usually referred to as ’stupid Marysville’) things start to change a little. Doug notices the amazing paintings of birds in an Audubon book on display in the public library. The boy is captivated by the birds, but soon it becomes clear that to raise money, the town has been selling off different pages in the book to collectors. Between wanting to preserve the book, learning to draw, solving some

#45 Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell (1960)
45 points

This book took me to another time and place, unlike any other book. Haunting. Before Katniss, there was Karana. – DeAnn Okamura

Oo.  Leave it to DeAnn to come up with the best line of them all.  “Before Katniss, there was Karana”.  I am so quoting you on that, m’dear.  Beautifully put.

The publisher’s description of the plot reads, “In the Pacific there is an island that looks like a big fish sunning itself in the sea. Around it, blue dolphins swim, otters play, and sea elephants and sea birds abound. Once, Indians also lived on the island. And when they left and sailed to the east, one young girl was left behind.  This is the story of Karana, the Indian girl who lived alone for years on the Island of the Blue Dolphins. Year after year, she watched one season pass into another and waited for a ship to take her away. But while she waited, she kept herself alive by building shelter, making weapons, finding food, and fighting her enemies, the wild dogs. It is not only an unusual adventure of survival, but also a tale of natural beauty and personal discovery.”

She was the Lost Woman of San Nicolas Island.  A woman who had lived there all by herself from 1835 to 1853.  Jan Timbrook, Curator of Ethnography at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, gives a little background on her true story.  “In the early 1800’s, Russian and Aleut sea otter hunters clashed violently with Indian people living on remote San Nicolas Island. The mission padres requested that these Indians be moved to the mainland for their own safety, and in 1835 a schooner was sent to pick them up. As the ship was being loaded, a woman discovered her child had been left in the village and went back to find it. Meanwhile a strong wind arose. The ship was forced to sail and the woman was abandoned on the island, her child apparently killed by wild dogs. The schooner was unable to go back for her, and she spent eighteen years alone on the barren, windswept island. She never saw her fellow islanders again.”  There is more info here.  After she died the DAR (the DAR?) gave her a plaque in her honor.  Here it is:

When O’Dell heard of her he was, according to Anita Silvey’s 100 Best Books for Children, a book review editor for the Los Angeles Times.  So he wrote a book about a similar woman but the audience, to him anyway, was unknown.  According to David L. Russell’s book Scott O’Dell, he once said of the book, “I didn’t know what young people were reading and I didn’t consider [Island of the Blue Dolphins] a children’s book, necessarily. [It] was a protest against the hunters who came into our mountains and killed everything that crept or walked or flew.  I sent the story to my agents. They sent it back to me by return mail, saying that if I was serious about the story I should change the girl to a boy, because girls were only interested in romance and such. This seemed silly to me. So I picked up the story, went to New York City, and gave it to my editor, who accepted it the next day. When it won the Newbery Medal, I was launched into wri

#46 The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi (1990)
44 points

This is by far the best of Avi’s books. Non-stop adventure and a girl protagonist. Who could ask for anything more? – Martha Sherod

When I read this book for a children’s literature course I was completely blown away. I had never read anything like this written for children before. It doesn’t patronize or placate or sugar coat. It is an awesome adventure story for kids, the fact that it stars a feisty female as the main character is just a plus. It also has one of the greatest first lines of a novel ever! - Amy Miele

Well, naturally after Amy said that I had to find the first line. Here it is: “Not every thirteen-year-old girl is accused of murder, brought to trial, and found guilty.”  Yeah.  I’m gonna give her this one.

I run a bookgroup for kids between the ages of 9 and (now) 14 out of my library.  One day one of my best readers came up to me, clutching a copy of The True Adventures of Charlotte Doyle in her hot little hand.  “We HAVE to read this!” she insisted.  “It is so good!”  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I hadn’t actually read it myself at the time.  But I took her at her word and brought it up with the rest of the group.  Charlotte Doyle is part award winner, part crowd pleaser, and altogether enjoyable.  I tell you, man.  Those Charlotte fans.  They’re insatiable.

Publishers Weekly describes the book in this way: “Told in the form of a recollection, these ‘confessions’ cover 13-year-old Charlotte’s eventful 1832 transatlantic crossing. She begins her trip a prim schoolgirl returning home to her American family from England. From the start, there is something wrong with the Seahawk : the families that were to serve as Charlotte’s chaperones do not arrive, and the unsavory crew warns her not to make the trip. When the crew rebels, Charlotte first sides with the civilized Captain Jaggerty, but before long she realizes that he is a sadist and–the only female aboard–she joins the crew as a seaman. Charlotte is charged with murder and sentenced to be hanged before the trip is over, but ends up in command of the Seahawk by the time it reaches its destination. Charlotte’s repressive Puritanical family refuses to believe her tale, and the girl returns to the sea.”

Now according to Anita Silvey’s 100 Best Books for Children, “Avi first entered the realm of children’s books as a character.  His fourth-grade class was portrayed in Bette Bao Lord’s book In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson, and Avi made his debut as Irvie, the silent member of the group.”  An auspicious beginning to say the least.

In terms of this particular book, Silvey says, “Avi had been working on another book, The Man Who Was Poe, when he began thinking about The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.  At first he thought he would write a mystery, entitled ‘The Seahawk,’ set on the high seas.  But as he wrote, he cared more and more about Charlotte – and ultimately decided that it should become her book.”  On his website Avi also explains that, “As for the title, when I thought of it, I assumed it would not work because there must be a million books with a similar title. But when I checked, to my amazement, there was not one. Happy to grab it.”

For a moment there, it was thought that Danny DeVito would direct the cinematic version of this book.  Indeed, they’d already cast Pierce

#47 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868)
43 points

So ahead of her time, it makes you think her father was doing something right. – Susan Van Metre

I still think Jo should have married Laurie. – The Sauls Family

And at last the oldest children’s book to appear on this list makes its appearance (sorry, The Tales of Peter Parley About America fans).

The plot from Anita Silvey’s Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children’s Book reads, “The four March girls – determined Jo, beautiful Meg, saintly Beth, and artistic Amy – experience first the problems of the Civil War years and then the period after the war.  All struggled with character defects (Meg vanity; Jo tempter ; Beth shyness; and Amy selfishness); all deal with the problems created by their family’s poverty.  Without question one of the saddest moments universally acknowledged in children’s fiction comes when Beth dies.  And that, of course, underscores the great strength of Alcott’s work; she brings these characters to life.  But Jo carries the story.  She refuses to accept what society tells her to be.  She is generous and loving, cutting off her own hair to provide money for the family, but she is never a victim.  She finds her own path and becomes what she wants to be, a writer.”

And its origin story?  The Reference Guide to American Literature describes the creation of the book(s) in this way: “Alcott’s purpose in writing Little Women was not to create a nostalgic portrait of an idyllic childhood, though the book is often read as such. She wrote it to make money.” Horn Book’s article “Introduction to the Centennial Edition of Little Women” by Cornelia Meigs goes into a bit more detail on the matter. “In September, 1867, [Alcott] mentions in her diary that Mr. Thomas Niles of Roberts Brothers had asked her for a book for girls. It seems to have been somewhat of a shot in the dark even for him; for her it was even more unpromising than that. She agreed to try, but linked the task so little that she did not go on with it. Other and easier-seeming undertakings were allowed to come in the way and in May, 1867, she sent her father to Mr. Niles to ask him if he would not be interested in a fairy book. Thomas Niles answered firmly that he wanted a book for girls.” And so, dear reader, she did.

The second part of Little Women was originally published in 1869 as Good Wives. Usually that book is paired with the first into one great big Little Women, though. Part one was drawn quite a bit from Alcott’s own life (even to the point where Amy was simply the rearranged letters of Louisa’s actual sister). Elizabeth, Lousia’s sister, died at twenty-three. Louisa was very disappointed when the family broke up. The Alcott girls donated their Christmas breakfast to a needy family once. Louisa won a hundred dollars in a writing contest. The girls often performed their own plays.  It’s all there! I was particularly pleased to find a letter in the May 1903 edition of St. Nicholas from Annie Alcott Pratt, otherwise known to the world as “Meg”. She clarifies a couple points. ” ‘Meg’ was never the pretty vain little maiden, who coquetted and made herself so charming. But ‘Jo’ always admired poor, plain ‘Meg,’ and when she came to put her into the story, she beautified her to suit the occasion, saying, ‘Dear me, girls, we must have one beauty in the book!’ So ‘Meg,’ with her big mouth and homely nose, shines forth quite a darling, and no doubt all the ‘ little wo

#48 The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket (1999)
43 points

Also brought me a huge list of new readers – boys and girls and teachers loved to read them out loud to the class. – Cheryl Phillips

I’m a Snicket girl, loving the play with wit and words in this Series of Unfortunate Events. – Pam Coughlan

Unlike other series no one had any desire to nominate a Snicket title other than this, the first. That helped its rating considerably.  Previously #71 it now leaps up to the 40s.  Not too shabby.  My encounters with the book precede my library degree.  When I lived in Portland, Oregon after college I started reading children’s books out of the blue (yet never dreamed I’d be a children’s librarian, odd as that may sound).  I read the first few Snicket books in Powell’s on a lark and loved them, so after the publication of #4 I went and saw Mr. Snicket speak.  He was wonderful, and the crowd was reasonable if not excessive.  Later, when he would command entire buildings like the Union Square Barnes & Noble, I missed the early days of Snicketmania.  Ah, nostalgic me.

Library Journal described the plot in this manner: “This series chronicles the unfortunate lives of the Baudelaire children: Violet, 14; Klaus, 12; and the infant, Sunny. In Bad Beginning, their parents and possessions perish in a fire, and the orphans must use their talents to survive as their lives move from one disastrous event to another. Surrounded by dim-witted though well-meaning adults, the Baudelaires find themselves in the care of their evil relative, Count Olaf, a disreputable actor whose main concern is getting his hands on the children’s fortune. When Olaf holds Sunny hostage to force Violet to marry him, it takes all of the siblings’ resourcefulness to outwit him. Violet’s inventive genius, Klaus’s forte for research, and Sunny’s gift for biting the bad guys at opportune moments save the day.”

In Funny Business: Conversations with Writers of Comedy (edited by Leonard Marcus) an interview was conducted with Daniel Handler, the face behind the Snicket.  The son of a man who escaped the Holocaust, Handler’s career as a children’s author began when his editor suggested (after reading an adult manuscript) that he write for kids.  The editor was Susan Rich, a woman we will now refer to as “Resident Genius” because I doubt that many editors would have seen the possibilities in Handler’s wordplay.  The ideas?  Not a problem.  “That’s what always happens to me: I have a clear idea for a story right away, and then as I’m writing it I find that it has more twists and corners than I knew.”  He told his editor it would be a thirteen book series.  She told him he’d be lucky if he could publish four.

The charm of the series is well defined by Sandra Howard in the August 25, 2001 edition of Spectator. “As a child I had an invented other child that I used to enjoy pretending to be; she had a permanently wretched time, always cruelly treated, slaving away. I’m sure Lemony Snicket’s constant exhortations to expect only the direst events to occur will have a happily morbid appeal and I found myself impatient to know how the orphans were going to get out of one scrape to be ready for the next. The tales are straightforward, no foe-defying magic, just companionable sharing of a disastrous state of affairs.”

It’s probably not too surprising that the first book Handler bought with his own money was Edward Gorey’s The Blue Aspic.  He was in first or second grade at the time.  His other influences

#49 My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett (1948)
42 points

A testament to the power of childhood imagination. - Hotspur Closser

I loved the map on the endpapers, and the careful way Elmer ran away, with his list of useful objects. – Anonymous

Five years ago I was tapped along with some other librarians to fill in at a local elementary school and read to a couple classes of kids while their librarian was gone.  The book that I was asked to bring along was My Father’s Dragon, since that was what the kids were in the middle of and they were already deeply engrossed in the story.  I, sad to say, at the time had never read the book.  So I picked up a nice new copy and headed over there.  I’ve rarely seen anything like it.  Class after class of third graders sat there, jaws literally agape, as I read from a book that was a good 60 years old.  Doubt you the power of a great story?  Look no further.  This title has a hold on kids that most folks would kill to achieve.

Bryna J. Fireside in Horn Book described the plot this way: “In the book, nine-year-old Elmer Elevator has learned from an old alley cat, whom he has rescued, that a baby dragon held captive on Wild Island needs to be rescued. The grateful old alley cat is sure that if Elmer rescues the dragon, the dragon will be only too happy to let Elmer fly on his back to anywhere he wishes. So the alley cat helps Elmer plan the rescue.  Elmer makes certain to take a variety of common objects along — comb and brush, six magnifying glasses, chewing gum, some rubber bands, two dozen pink lollipops — and purloins his father’s knapsack to hold everything. The knapsack becomes a talisman, a cloak of protection for Elmer. And, of course, Elmer packs some food — twenty-five peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and six apples. When all his gear is safely in his father’s knapsack, Elmer stows away on the boat which will eventually take him to the dangerous Wild Island.  There, Elmer encounters many animals — from a tiny mouse whose Spoonerisms will induce gales of laughter in young readers to two officious wild boars on the alert for an invasion. He also meets lions, tigers, and crocodiles who would love to eat him for lunch.”  The story is told as one the narrator heard years ago, Elmer being the “father” mentioned in the title.

As Anita Silvey’s 100 Books for Reading and Sharing tell us, new Vassar College graduate Ruth Stiles Gannett wrote the book in two rainy weeks.  Her stepmother was (and here’s where it gets confusing) Ruth Chrisman Gannett, “who had previously illustrated a Caldecott Honor Book and a Newbery Medal winner.”  That Newbery winner was Miss Hickory, for the record.  She created illustrations for the book and Ruth Stiles Gannett’s future husband Peter Kahn helped create the maps of Tangerian and Wild Island.  Gannett the younger wrote two sequels to the book then never wrote any children’s books again.  Remarkable.

The book stands up over the years.  In Everything I Need to Know I Learned From a Children’s Book, Nick Clark (director of the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art) says of the book, “The illustrations are absolutely delicious and really take the text into another dimension, graphically extending it.  Books are so important in conveying messages to children.  We may not fully appreciate the impact of a book until we are older, but there are things that we learn from our reading.  From My Father’s Dragon I learned that you have to use your noodle – and that the underdog can

#50 Number the Stars by Lois Lowry (1989)
42 points

Previously #56, Lowry’s classic stays at pretty much the same spot on both the old and the new list.  And why not?  A beautiful book that deserves to be remembered.

The plot from the publisher reads, “Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen often think of life before the war. It’s now 1943 and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching through town. When the Jews of Denmark are “relocated,” Ellen moves in with the Johansens and pretends to be one of the family. Soon Annemarie is asked to go on a dangerous mission to save Ellen’s life.”

In terms of the research for this novel, Ms. Lowry talks a bit about it on the Scholastic site: “I did a lot of research in libraries, about the history of WW II and Denmark’s role in it. But the most important thing I did was to go to Denmark and to talk to people who had actually participated in the rescue of the Jews. It was important, too, to walk around Copenhagen and feel what the city is like (and imagine what it had been like then) and to go up the coast, through the farmland and the fishing villages.”

There is a serious debate out there about if and when to teach children about the Holocaust.  “Representations of the Holocaust in Children’s Literature” from the Children’s Literature Review puts it this way.  “Holocaust children’s literature has always been controversial. Though some feel that the subject matter is inappropriate for young audiences, others argue that children must be educated about such a significant historical event.”  So periodically we will see children’s books try to tackle this slippery subject.  Some fail, others succeed, and one of the most successful was probably Number the Stars.

Good old symbolism.  This book is chock full of it, but not so much that it annoys the reader (whether an adult or a child).  In the April 1997 edition of Lion and the Unicorn, David L. Russell takes a close look at some of that.  “The symbolism of the boots trampling on this human dignity is found in many, if not in most, stories of the Holocaust. In fact, Lowry’s editor felt that there were too many references to the boots and that some should be eliminated, but Lowry rejected the advice, noting that ‘those high shiny boots had trampled on several million childhoods and I was sorry I hadn’t had several million more pages on which to mention that’.”  And that’s not even getting into the Little Red Riding Hood comparisons Brenda Ferber brought up.  It’s one of those elements that you don’t notice at first, but if you look for it . . . oh, it’s there.

In terms of the cover, Ms. Lowry says, “The girl on the jacket of Number the Stars is a Swedish girl named Anna Caterina Johnson. (She prefers being called Ann.) I photographed her when she was 10… She is now married with three children!”

I won a Newbery Award Medal proper in 1990, beating out such titles as Afternoon of the Elves by Janet Taylor Lisle, Shabanu, Daughter of the Wind by Suzanne Fisher Staples, and The Winter Room by Gary Paulsen.

I’ve seen fan art by professional illustrators on a lot of books, but this image by Ashley Smith surprised me.  I wo

#51 The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, A Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo (2003)
41 points

The perfect modern day fairytale. I also love how she broke the fourth wall and addressed the reader directly. - Amy Miele

Charming, engaging, lovely, imaginative, and a great read aloud! – Charlotte Burrows

The synopsis from the publisher reads, “Welcome to the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse who is in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in the darkness and covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl who harbors a simple, impossible wish. These three characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering castle, and, ultimately, into each other’s lives. What happens then? As Kate DiCamillo would say: Reader, it is your destiny to find out.”

From her Newbery Award speech DiCamillo once said of creating the book, “Four years ago, when he was eight years old, my friend Luke Bailey asked me to write the story of an unlikely hero. I was afraid to tell the story he wanted told: afraid because I didn’t know what I was doing; afraid because it was unlike anything I had written before; afraid, I guess, because the story was so intent on taking me into the depths of my own heart. But Luke wanted the story. I had promised him. And so, terrified and unwilling, I wrote The Tale of Despereaux.”

• There is a Teacher’s Resource Guide.

The starred Booklist review said, “Forgiveness, light, love, and soup. These essential ingredients combine into a tale that is as soul-stirring as it is delicious.”

The starred Kirkus review said, “And so unwinds a tale with twists and turns, full of forbidden soup and ladles, rats lusting for mouse blood, a servant who wishes to be a princess, a knight in shining–or at least furry–armor, and all the ingredients of an old-fashioned drama.”

School Library Journal said, “This expanded fairy tale is entertaining, heartening, and, above all, great fun.”

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books said, “There is a classic charm to this picaresque tale of an idealistic mouse suffering unrequited love for a princess; that and a pace that lends itself to reading aloud will make this novel a favorite among those ready for some gentle questing.”

Horn Book said of it, “The metaphor becomes heavy-handed only in the author’s brief, self-serving coda. Many readers will be enchanted by this story of mice and princesses, brave deeds, hearts ’shaded with dark and dappled with light,’ and forgiveness.”

And The New York Times said, “Here we might see DiCamillo’s own career, her ascent from full-time clerk in a store selling used books to author of a much-praised first novel for children, ‘Because of Winn-Dixie,’ which won a Newbery Honor Award and climbed the best-seller lists. Some might see kinship with G. I. Gurdjieff’s mystic parable about humans being captives in a prison but only a few recognizing this is so and, hearing rumors of another place, arranging an escape. In any event, she sets the stage for a battle between the forces of Darkness and Light in ‘The Tale of Despereaux,’ and the book is a terrific, bravura performance.”

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