I recently finished Kathi Appelt’s The Underneath, last year's Newbery Honor book. I've read a number of Kathi's picture books, and her YA short story collection, Kissing Tennessee is great. I was struck from the opening line of The Underneath by her beautiful language: “There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for a while, and then abandoned on the side of the road.”
But this is a complex and heavy story, filled with some pretty scary characters and told from multiple points of view. I found myself wondering about the criteria for Newbery awards. Is it more about style and literary merit and less about kid-appeal? The story moved slowly, and I doubt it would keep the attention of any but the most sophisticated fourth or fifth grade readers.
Perhaps I also was misled by the illustration on the cover (as would be the case with most young readers, too). It looks “cute,” but the story certainly isn’t. The antagonist is a sadistic drunk. He keeps his hound chained night and day to his front porch and punishes the dog for befriending a cat and her two kittens by beating the dog with a board. Then he stuffs the cats in a gunny sack and throws them into the bayou. Yes, the story has a happy ending, but it’s a disturbing journey getting there. I remember all too well the soggy tissues every time my elementary-aged daughter read a tragic animal story—Stone Fox, Incident at Hawk’s Hill, Old Yeller. She would have been upset by this book, too, in spite of the lyrical language, the interesting symbolism and the Caddo Indian lore.
As an aside, Kathi teaches in the Vermont College’s MFA program, where my first Spalding mentor, Candice Ransom, got her degree. It was with pleasure that I saw Kathi mention Candice in her acknowledgments. This writing world is smaller than it first appears.
But this is a complex and heavy story, filled with some pretty scary characters and told from multiple points of view. I found myself wondering about the criteria for Newbery awards. Is it more about style and literary merit and less about kid-appeal? The story moved slowly, and I doubt it would keep the attention of any but the most sophisticated fourth or fifth grade readers.
Perhaps I also was misled by the illustration on the cover (as would be the case with most young readers, too). It looks “cute,” but the story certainly isn’t. The antagonist is a sadistic drunk. He keeps his hound chained night and day to his front porch and punishes the dog for befriending a cat and her two kittens by beating the dog with a board. Then he stuffs the cats in a gunny sack and throws them into the bayou. Yes, the story has a happy ending, but it’s a disturbing journey getting there. I remember all too well the soggy tissues every time my elementary-aged daughter read a tragic animal story—Stone Fox, Incident at Hawk’s Hill, Old Yeller. She would have been upset by this book, too, in spite of the lyrical language, the interesting symbolism and the Caddo Indian lore.
As an aside, Kathi teaches in the Vermont College’s MFA program, where my first Spalding mentor, Candice Ransom, got her degree. It was with pleasure that I saw Kathi mention Candice in her acknowledgments. This writing world is smaller than it first appears.
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