On the knitting front, I finished the Harry Potter-inspired beanie that I was knitting last week and delivered it to a very happy recipient. I’m still working on my husband’s scarf and started a pumpkin hat for a friend’s almost-2-year-old this week, but I think it wound up too big so I may finish this one for an older child (or for my friend’s daughter to save until she’s bigger!) and reknit a smaller size. I also started knitting the Branching Out scarf from Knitty, using some gorgeous alpaca/silk yarn from Three Waters Farm. I made the owl yarn bowl in pottery class and just picked it up from the studio yesterday. So far I love using it — the yarn is fed through the slot and so when you pull it, the ball of yarn just spins in the bowl rather than rolling off the couch and across the floor. Very useful indeed! I made a few more bowls in class this week that I hope to turn into yarn bowls — I would like to test several designs and see which I like best.
As I continue to read my way through the Newbery Medal winners from 1922 to the present, I finished The Witch of Blackbird Pond (1959) last week. I had loved this book as a child and rereading it reminded me of why. High-spirited teenager Kit Taylor has traveled from her lifelong home in Barbados to live with her Puritan aunt and uncle in colonial Connecticut. Kit struggles to fit in, finding her uncle stern, the daily work exhausting, the townspeople judgmental, and religious services (which she had seldom attended in Barbados) interminably dull.
Happily, Kit eventually finds her way to the home of Hannah, a Quaker who had been driven out of Massachusetts and has settled at the edge of nearby Blackbird Pond. A kind soul (and, to Kit, a welcome fellow non-conformist in this very strict Puritan community), Hannah has been the object of townspeople’s rumors of witchcraft for years. Even though she is warned to stay away from Hannah, Kit returns time and again, not only to help the widow, but also to teach Prudence, a child whose mother deems her not smart enough to learn to read and write and so won’t send her to school. There, she frequently encounters Nat Eaton, a sailor on the ship that had brought Kit to Connecticut who stops in to help Hannah frequently. When several children in the village fall seriously ill, many townspeople looking for a scapegoat settle on Hannah and anyone associated with her as witches who must have caused the illness. You’ll have to read to find out what happens to Hannah, to Kit, to young Prudence, to Nat, and to the young men who court Kit and her cousins Judith and Mercy!
This was the last Newbery winner of the 1950s, and was my favorite. I loved the way that this book told an engrossing story about a young girl’s struggle to find her way in the world and help others, while also weaving in a great deal of interesting and diverse history (Puritan religious life, the work that went into the daily running of a colonial household, the beginnings of complaints about royal government in the colonies, sugar plantations in the Caribbean, courtship traditions, and much more). Here are some of my other favorites from the 1950s — if you look back at my Yarn Along posts, you’ll find my comments on each:
Best of the 1950s: The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
Runner Up: The Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark (tie)
Runner Up: The Wheel on the School by Meinert DeJong (tie)
I also especially enjoyed: Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham, and Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith — As with the 1940s, I really enjoyed most of the books from the 1950s, so several that I didn’t single out as special favorites for me were also really, really good in my opinion!
I’m currently reading Onion John by Joseph Krumgold (1960). If that name sounds familiar, it’s because I read another Newbery winner by Krumgold a few weeks ago (…And Now Miguel). This story focuses on the friendship between a middle-school-aged boy, Andy, and the title character, a man who lives on the outskirts of his small town. Onion John is a European immigrant who doesn’t speak a great deal of English. He lives unconventionally in a house he built himself, tending his garden, finding useful things in the town dump, and doing odd jobs for income. Andy’s father likes Onion John well enough, but wishes he would live more like other people, especially if he’s going to spend so much time with Andy, and so launches a campaign to build Onion John a “proper” house, while also trying to steer Andy toward a particular (unwanted) career path. I haven’t finished the book yet, so I don’t know how it all turns out, but I’m rooting for Andy and Onion John to be left alone so that they can be themselves.
It’s interesting, but not surprising, that these two books from the late 1950s/early 1960s both have such a strong focus on the tension between conformity and individuality. After all, the 1950s have a cultural reputation for wholesome conformity and this is the era that brought us the Rankin Bass Rudolph special about misfits. It will be interesting to see if other early 1960s Newbery winners carry similar themes!
This post is part of the weekly Yarn Along hosted by the wonderful blog Small Things — please visit there to see what some creative people are reading and creating this week.
