Kathi Appelt’s The Underneath (Atheneum, 311 pp., $19.99, ages 8 and up) made the shortlist for the 2009 Newbery Medal and 2008 National Book Award for young people’s literature. But the novel lost the top prizes to Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book and the Judy Blundell’s What I Saw and How I Lied. Were the judges put off by a violent plot that abounds with cruelty to people and animals? A review of the novel will appear on Saturday.
© 2009 Janice Harayda
One-Minute Book Reviews 
Oooh, sounds intriguing. Looking forward to your review.
Comment by sarahsk — February 13, 2009 @ 9:39 pm |
Thanks, Sarah. So often it’s the Newbery winner that’s controversial. It’s interesting to me that, this year, an Honor Book seems to have inspired more of a backlash than the novel that got the top prize. Wonder if this has happened in the past.
Comment by 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — February 13, 2009 @ 11:27 pm |