2007 Newberry Honor Books

I stumbled across this article on the three 2007 Newberry Honor Books: "Penny From Heaven," "Rules" and "Hattie Big Sky". This is what first caught my eye:

Like the 2007 Newbery Medal-winning book, "The Higher Power of Lucky," all three of the Newbery Honor books also feature narratives by strong-willed, interesting female protagonists.

And therein lies a potential problem for readers.

There's a saying in the children's-literature world that girls will read books with a boy protagonist, but boys won't read a book with a girl protagonist.


My two daughters have no problem reading books with boy protagonists, but I must admit that when I was a wee lad, I was generally uninterested in books with a girl as the main character. My wife, a fifth grade teacher, has also seen this in action: given a choice between two books, one with a girl protagonist, and one with a boy, the fifth grade boys will inevitably choose the one with the boy, while the girls will not necessarily choose the book with the girl character. Why is this? Don't ask me, I am sure there is a sociologist out there somewhere who has studied the phenomenon...

Anyway the rest of the article gives a good review of the three honor award winners.