The Washington Post released an article about the Newbery Awards and how, just maybe, the seemingly high brow award may be more detrimental to a child’s reading than beneficial.

Honestly, I’m more inclined to agree with this rebuttal article and add a few more points but first, the argument against the Newbery.  Essentially, critics of the Newbery feel that the books that are chosen as award winners aren’t those that kids would necessarily want to read or could really understand.  It’s an award that’s out of touch with the youth of America and thus forcing children to read books that don’t stimulate them could turn them off to reading even more.

I don’t know about you, but even with all of the information in that first article, I still think it’s a pretty weak argument, not to mention slightly underestimating younger readers.  That’s why I like the second article better.  Personally, I find nothing wrong with the Newbery, no more so than the Pulitzer or the National Book Award.  Remember when Stephen King won the NBA?  And all those masters of lit-ra-ture scoffed at a genre writer winning an award that was supposedly so far out of his reach?  That’s kind of why I don’t read a lot of those books.  Many of them are filled with pretentious naval-gazing and I do see the Newbery as being, relatively speaking, the children’s equivalent.  At least the Newbery winners can’t stop open doors.

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