Match the Newbery Plot: Part 6 Quiz

Answer: Lincoln: A Photobiography

As the title suggests, Russell Freedman's 1987 biography of Abraham Lincoln contains many photos to help tell Lincoln's life story. While it focuses more on Lincoln's political life, we also read about his childhood.

Answer: Invincible Louisa

Cornelia Meigs wrote this 1933 biography of Louisa May Alcott. It starts with Alcott's parents' lives before moving on to her childhood. Her father moved the family around many times while trying to further the education of children. Alcott was a nurse for a short time during the American Civil War before catching typhoid, which plagued her for the rest of her life.

In the book, readers see the various inspirations for characters in Alcott's novels.

Answer: Daniel Boone

James Daugherty's 1939 biography really stretches the definition of the word. While it's an overview of the life of Daniel Boone, the Kentucky statesman and frontiersman, we never get a good sense of what the man himself was like. It also depicts Native Americans as violent stereotypes.

Answer: Gay Neck

While the story of a pigeon, this book is told from the point-of-view of a boy in India who raises pigeons. A few times, he lets Gay Neck tell his own story. Gay Neck gets lost in the Himalayas, is trained to carry messages in WWI, and must be cured of the hate and fear instilled in him by war.

The theme of Dhan Gopal Mukerji's 1928 book is that fear must defeat you before any other enemies do.

Answer: Smoky the Cowhorse

The first two-thirds are about the horse Smoky's life in the wild, being caught and trained, and working. The last third sees him stolen and abused into the life of an angry rodeo horse before he's redeemed by his original owner. Will James wrote this 1927 book. The year "Smoky" won, there were no Newbery Honor books.

Answer: King of the Wind

This book is actually based on the life of a real horse, the Godolphin Arabian, whose descendants became Thoroughbreds. Sham, the titular horse, is raised to be a racehorse, but is sold as a workhorse for a time before his real talents become known. Marguerite Henry, known for her horse books, wrote this 1948 book.

Answer: Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

Jean Lee Latham wrote this 1955 book based on the life of Nathaniel Bowditch. Indentured by his father to a candle maker, Nat cannot go to school, and so teaches himself multiple languages and subjects in his rare spare time. After nine years, he goes to sea and makes great progress in the fields of navigation and mathematics.

Answer: Amos Fortune, Free Man

Amos is born free in Africa, but is captured and sold in America. Everyone he's a slave to is a generally nice person, and he eventually buys his freedom. This one is a bit uncomfortable to read, as Amos thinks that some people need to be slaves, and that freedom means more if you earn it.

He doesn't consider that he was born free and that everyone deserves freedom regardless of birth. Elizabeth Yates probably had good intentions in writing this 1950 book, which was loosely based on the life of a real man, but it largely comes off as insulting.

Answer: Hitty, Her First Hundred Years

In this 1929 book by Rachel Field, Hitty is a doll who, having found a home in an antique shop, starts writing her memoirs about her globetrotting life. She is made for a little girl, but then is lost. She spends time in a bird's nest, Pacific islands, India (as part of a snake charmer's act), a Quaker home, and more as she's lost, found, bought, stolen, forgotten, and auctioned.

Answer: The Story of Mankind

The first Newbery Medal winner, Hendrik van Loon's 1921 book starts with natural history and attempts to cram the entire history of humanity into a single book. Some information is out of date (like how long dinosaurs roamed the Earth), but that was likely the best information he had at the time.

More problematic is the over-emphasis on the importance of European achievements to the detriment of other continents. Also, because there's thousands of years of history to cover, there's very little depth to anything mentioned.