In class today we discussed The Graveyard Book being accepted into the Newbery tradition. This was a tricky question to me because part of me just wanted to say no but then the other part would say yes.
The Graveyard Book was a very scary and dark story and because of this it did not seem to meet the standards of the Newberry tradition. I don’t think this would be very interesting to young children. I know, as a child, if I had read the first couple of pages I would have probably had nightmares. Also, at the end of the novel, I felt like I did not get much from the book. To contrast, in the stories Charlottes Web, Holes, and Number the Stars; I felt like there were strong moral implications underlining their basic plot. In The Graveyard Book I did not have a feeling of accomplishment and knowledge towards the end of the novel. Also there were certain challenges to this novel, which is not like the other challenges in the Newbery’s we have read. The major challenge was that it did not go smoothly throughout because Mr. McKean wrote it first as a short story. Second, this book did not have a moral message that was clear to the reader. I just think that he was so close to making a moral statement between the living and the dead, but instead he was not able to do it. He was not able to make the statement that could have made the novel better and more engaging.
A reason that I support the decision to make this book into a Newbery was because it followed the themes of death and being an outcast. At some point in everyone’s lives, everyone feels alone and unwelcome. When reading this book that has that same outcast character we feel that we are no more along. By reading this book and witnessing the experiences of the outcast character the reader has someone to relate too and no longer feels ostracized. At first we are creped out about this boy who does not have a family and now is called Nobody. How more of an outcast could this boy be? He is stuck between to worlds, one is with the dead and the other the living, but he does not ever belong to one group. In this way the novel could fit into the Newbery tradition because it follows the general themes of being an outcast that are often present in other Newberry award winning books.
