As most of the kidlit world already knows, Neil Gaiman’s novel The Graveyard Book won the Newbery Award, announced yesterday. Who am I to disagree with both the Newbery committee and the Cybils panelists? I will only say that I started it once and made it through the first two pages, determined to give it another try and made it about halfway through, and then gave up. Not that it was difficult or “too dark” or even uninteresting exactly. I just didn’t care what happened to Bod or to his already dead guardians and substitute parents. If I’d known it was going to win the Newbery, I would have forced myself to finish.

Newbery Honor Books:

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt, illustrated by David Small (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing) Yes! This book is the one I thought should get the Newbery. I didn’t lose interest in it ever, and I didn’t have to force myself to continue reading it. Also the two guinea pigs that I tried it out on (Brown Bear Daughter and Bee-girl) liked it, too.

The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle (Henry Holt & Company) It sounds like the token “literary” pick, but maybe it’s great. I haven’t read it.

Savvy by Ingrid Law (Dial Books for Young Readers, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group in partnership with Walden Media, LLC. Read it. I thought it was fun, but not a classic.

After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Books for Young Readers) I haven’t read this one either.

I think I’m a curmudgeon. This year is supposed to be the year that I “discover” Neil Gaiman. But I’m going to discover some other book that’s not set in a graveyard.