This is a review of one of the books I’ve read for The Newbery Project. - LJM

I loved reading I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino. This book, written in the first-person point of view, won the Newbery Medal in 1966.

The novel is based on the real life story of Juan de Pareja, a slave that served a famous painter, Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, in 17th century Spain. The main character is compelling and likable. We meet him as a child living in Seville. Since the book is written in first-person, from Juan de Pareja’s point of view, we get to know him well; he confides his deepest secrets and feelings as he passes through a difficult childhood.

After the first few chapters, Juan de Pareja is no longer a child. To me it seemed strange to read a children’s book that violated a primary rule of writing for children – that the main character should be a child – and that’s one reason I decided the book was more suitable for teenagers than for middle grade aged children (8 to 12). Another reason is that there are many tragic deaths of people around him, including his mother and a young girl. Through most of the book, we read about Juan de Pareja as an adult, living in Madrid, a slave to the painter. He is portrayed as a devoted servant who is happy with his slavery except for one detail: he wants to paint, which is forbidden by law to slaves.

The writing in this book flowed flawlessly so it was pleasant to read, and it took me only a few days to get through it. That’s fast, as I’m normally a slow reader who gets through one chapter per night if I’m lucky. But I, Juan de Pareja fascinated me and at times I couldn’t put it down despite being tired (I read right before sleeping, most nights).

One thing I liked about the book was the philosophy Velasquez expressed about painting. In one scene he compared the drawings of two apprentice artists, defacing the excellent work of one of the boys because he had embellished the truth in order to make a still-life of moldy cheese and dry bread look better. Velasquez said, “I would rather paint exactly what I see, even if it is ugly, perfectly, than indifferently paint something superficially lovely. . . . Art is Truth, and to serve Art, I will never deceive.”

You can find photos of paintings by Velazquez on the internet. The painting included with this review is one Velasquez did in 1650 of his slave and friend, Juan de Pareja.

This year I’m participating in The Newbery Project, a group collaboration blog with book reviews by people who have agreed to read all the Newbery Medal winning books. The Newbery Medal is awarded annually by the American Library Association (ALA) for the most distinguished contribution to children’s literature, the prior year.

I decided to do this because I’ve had the goal of reading all those books for a long time. It started about ten years ago when I started reading children’s novels out loud to my young children while I was homeschooling them. We developed a habit of reading Newbery Medal winning books, and Newbery honor books, together as a family. So I’ve already read many of the titles on the list. I, however, included the Newbery honor books rather than only the Newbery Medal winners, so there’s still a lot of winners I haven’t read yet. I plan to re-read books I’ve read before, to prepare to review them for the site. I’m also posting reviews on this site for each novel.

After reading many of these fine novels, I set my heart on writing some, and that came to pass starting in 2001. I’ve now written three middle grade novels and two young adult novels. Because I’m writing in this genre, I need to read the type of books I’m working on. So The Newbery Project serves a real need for me, as well as being something that fulfills a goal I set for myself years ago.

So far I’ve reviewed only three novels for the list. I have one more review in the works, and am currently listening to another Newbery Medal winning novel, on tape.

This is a review of one of the books I’ve read for The Newbery Project. - LJM

The 1943 winner of the Newbery Medal, Adam of the Road, a 23-chapter book by Elizabeth Janet Gray (Elizabeth Gray Vining), is a juvenile romp down primitive roads surrounding London during the Middle Age years of 1294-1295. The title character, Adam Quartermayne, is the eleven-year-old son of a minstrel. Adam starts his adventure with a harp, and ends it with a bagpipe. He also has a steady repertoire of songs, including at least one he wrote himself. And Adam has the road.

According to Adam’s father, Roger, the road is home to a minstrel:

“A road is a kind of holy thing,” Roger went on. “That’s why it’s a good work to keep a road in repair, like giving alms to the poor or tending the sick. It’s open to the sun and wind and rain. It brings all kinds of people and all parts of England together. And it’s home to a minstrel, even though he may happen to be sleeping in a castle.”

-Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray, Viking Press paperback, page 53

I found this particularly interesting because my first big writing project, my seventh grade term paper, was about minstrels. I wish I’d known about this novel back then.

There’s some beautiful description in this book:

“Between the high, windswept fields the road stretched muddy and rutted toward bare purple woods. Here and there a swollen brook flooding the road reflected the cold cherry-colored light of the setting sun.”

-Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray, Viking Press paperback, page 292

The book contains plenty of action to keep a child interested as Adam leaves his school to follow his father down the road to harmonious minstrelsy. His adorable red setter, Nick, goes along.

Things happen in a fairly ordinary way until page 126 when Adam’s dog, Nick, is kidnapped. I wondered if this might have been a better beginning for the story, since at this point the story grabs the heart and emotions and won’t let go. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Adam soon loses track of his father as well. You just have to keep reading to find out what happens next!

Adam’s story is one of suffering and hardship. On the road he meets wonderful people who want to help him as well as evil people who want only to harm and destroy. The contrast of Adam’s experience with the lives of children in modern times is going to be an eye-opener for every child who reads this moving novel. Despite all conflict, Adam maintains a sense of gratitude for the experiences life gives him:

“Last night at Guildford Castle, the night before at the Ferryman’s house, tonight at Farnham Inn under the merchant’s care! Adam thought he knew now why Roger said the road was home to the minstrel. It was because people were kind.”

-Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray, Viking Press paperback, page166

Some of those people were so kind they tried to convert Adam to their styles of living. He was offered opportunities in several different trades, but it was minstrelsy he had his heart set on.

I found a lot of dated expressions in this book. How quickly our language changes! I won’t ruin the experience for you by pointing them all out, but expect a 1940s book, because that’s what you’re going to get when you read Adam of the Road. Quaint in places, but still an excellent children’s primer on the life of minstrels in the Middle Ages in England.

This is a review of one of the books I’ve read for The Newbery Project. - LJM

When a writer reads a book, any flaws will stand out because we’re so used to editing our own work. Secret of the Andes, a Newbery Medal winning novel (1953) was fairly well edited - yet I found a few quirks to trip up my reading.

Let’s cover the good parts first.

Like many Newbery award winning books, Secret of the Andes provides children with a pleasant way to learn about a foreign culture. The author, Ann Nolan Clark, traveled through Peru and other Central and South American countries on a grant from 1945 to 1950. She’d already written and had published fifteen children’s novels about Native American culture. That was done during her twenty-five years of teaching at a New Mexico school for native children. From her travels, she was inspired to write a few more novels. Secret of the Andes was one of them.

In Secret of the Andes Ann Nolan Clark shared her extensive knowledge of Peruvian Inca culture. The protagonist in this unusual coming of age middle grade novel is a young Inca boy, Cusi, who has lived his entire life in a hidden valley on a mountain, high in the Andes. His guardian, Chuto, is a llama herder and breeder.

“The boy had seen no people in the eight years he had lived here. He had been too young to remember what had gone before.” - pg. 2

They shear the llamas annually and Chuto takes the wool to the city to barter for supplies. At the beginning of the novel Cusi has never been away from his flock of llamas in the hidden valley, but during the course of the book he meets other people for the first time in his life, and makes two trips down the mountain to visit the civilization below.

Throughout the novel Cusi yearns to know who his parents were and how he came to be living on a mountain with Chuto. He wants to live with a family, and when he sees that a family moved into a valley visible to him over the side of a cliff, he spends a lot of time looking at them to see what they do together.

To her credit, author Ann Nolan Clark pulls together all these feelings and provides answers for Cusi by the end of the novel. She does so, however, using some magical thinking techniques that made me cringe. For example, Cusi’s black llama and best friend, Misti, leads him on several excursions which include important plot points. I had a hard time believing that the llama was that perceptive and intelligent. I would have liked it better if Cusi stumbled upon these places himself, pulling the llama behind him. Clark also capitalized on the view that the Inca culture is mysterious by providing mysterious powers to the Incas. It seemed they knew things nobody else did, in ways nobody else could. What was otherwise a fairly believable novel took some leaps that were uncomfortable for me.

However the final chapter was very satisfying - enough so that I was able to forgive the rest. Ann Nolan Clark finished by showing Cusi the secret Chuto had kept from him for so many years. By that point in the novel I was able to believe that Cusi’s purpose for being on the mountain was worthwhile.

I enjoyed Ann Nolan Clark’s imagery and descriptions, for example:

“They lived in a hidden valley high up on the rock slope of a mountain. Mountain peak upon mountain peak, sheer and hard and glistening in frozen mantles of ice and snow, encircled them.” - pg. 2

What I didn’t enjoy was her occasional insertions of cultural notes that didn’t seem to fit the story line:

“Chuto brought the yarn he had carried down the mountain to barter. While they ate parched corn and dried meat, Chuto bargained. The other men examined the yarn, noting its quality and the evenness of its spinning. ‘The women of your village spin good yarn,’ one man told him. Chuto did not answer. He did not say there were no women in his village. He did not say that he had spun the yarn and under his patient teaching Cusi had spun some of it. Although spinning is chiefly women’s work, men and boys know how to spin. Occasionally they can be seen spinning yarn as they walk along the highland trails.” - pg. 46

This scene is fine until the last two sentences, which should have been consigned to the author’s notes. Having written novels, I can see why they were included in the first draft, but I think they should have been edited out in subsequent drafts. However Ann Nolan Clark was a teacher - something I sensed through reading Secret of the Andes, before I researched for biographical information. She was not just telling a good story; she had an ulterior motive, to bring an ancient native culture to life.

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Page numbers are from the contemporary Puffin Books paperback edition.

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I wrote a separate review of this book for The Newbery Project. Here’s a direct link to my review there: Newbery Project: Secret of the Andes (1953).