Fake Newbery Winners: Create Your Own Title
So I’m reading through the latest issue of School Library Journal, checking out which books got some stars in the back, and I notice something in the middle grade novel section. Three titles in particular catch my eye:
- A Nearer Moon by Melanie Crowder
- Rules for Stealing Stars by Corey Ann Haydu
- The Seventh Most Important Thing by Shelley Pearsall
All starred books with great authors. I’ve not read any of them yet, but I’m looking forward to doing so. Yet as I’m looking at their names, it occurs to me that when it comes to naming books, certain titles sound more, how shall I put it, Newbery worthy. Consider the following titles:
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The Higher Power of Lucky
One Came Home
Inside Out and Back Again
When You Reach Me
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon
Walk Two Moons
If you knew nothing about these books, their titles would strike you as particularly esoteric. There’s a certain style to them that repeats. The logical conclusion to reach then is that there must be an art to writing titles that sound Newbery-ish. So, for fun, I tried coming up with a couple of my own. Fake Newbery titles! And while I was at it, I came up with fake descriptions of what the books would be about. Here’s what I conjured up:
- Swimming Against the Dreams – Probably would involve a young woman who decides that her childhood pet wasn’t put down like her parents told her, but is currently the star of a reality show where it competes against other dogs to rescue the most people. She feels she has to reunite with it because she’s convinced that if she brings it home she’ll be able to cure her little brother’s dire disease.
- Twenty Things to do When You Sleep – Hm. This one sounds like a more fantastical story about a boy who discovers that when he dreams he sees the day that just happened through the eyes of one of his classmates. And the bully who torments him may be dealing with more than he ever realized.
- Forgetting the Final Thing – We haven’t done one about moving yet. So this one would be about a girl who has just moved to the big city from the country and is worried that the more time she spends surrounded by concrete, the more things she forgets about nature. She’s convinced that she forgets one thing about nature a day, and the only way to stop it is to run away to the local park and to live there.
- The Art of Making Lightning – Historical fiction. A boy lives next to the Carlisle Indian School but doesn’t think much about it until he hears about their fantastic football team. He sneaks away to watch them play whenever he can.
- Under the Willow Tree – Written in verse, this one’s about a girl dealing with the divorce of her parents against the backdrop of the hottest day of the year. Oh, and it all takes place in 24 hours.
I could do these forever. We should make a game out of it. Like the Dictionary Game or Balderdash, except that you’re supposed to come up with plots for obscure Newbery Award winners.
What are some of your own fake Newbery titles? Don’t pick one that already exists, mind you.
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About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.
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GENIUUUUUUUUUUUS!
The Only Way Out Is Through
A Short Walk to the Ends of the Earth
A Fingernail Moon
The Reasons for Weather
Things To Do In Sheboygan
They’ve gotta beat and I can dance to them!
I’d pick up A Short Walk to the Ends of the Earth and A Fingernail Moon!
“Sheboygan” is funny under any circumstances.
These are brilliant, as is your explanation about what each one is about. And Marjorie’s above are great too. Let’s see what I can add…
Count Down from a Million
Lightning Bug Promise
I’ll Forget You, Rafael Oliveira
(I had the experience of inventing a couple of titles and then finding out they were real. Oops. I replaced those with truly nonexistent titles)
I love these so much (the Rafael Oliveira is particularly inspired). And I too was worried that my own might actually exist.
Ha!
My Tiny Slice of Tomorrow
The Path to Everywhere
The Summer of Frogs and Fig Jam
Tea Kettle Island
I already want to read Tea Kettle Island.
I want to read The Summer of Frogs and Fig Jam!
This is fun!
Three Steps Forward
Leaving Rosa Lee
Where Hope Rekindles
The Forgettable Life of Finnegan Fife.
*drops mic*
AUGH! Give me that book now!!
It’ll happen… someday… just need to finish a couple other stories first. Of course, I’m open to bribes to move this one up the schedule. 😉
**applause**
The Unforgettable Life of Finnegan Fife! Perhaps as the sequel!
As Long as a Piece of String
This is by far my favorite post ever. At least four of these will be at BEA within a year. Sadly, this should have been posted seriously on April 1st. No one would have doubted them. I like to think I’m a pretty fair satirist, but I don’t think I can beat what’s already here. But I’ll try to add to the bookshelf:
Peanut Butter and Jenny
The Twelfth of Wonderful
What I Meant To Tell You
In The Winter We’ll Bake Bread
All The Winds Are Laughing
I do think next we need cover reveals for “Twenty Things to do When You Sleep” and “I’ll Forget You, Rafael Oliveira”
I would read The Twelfth of Wonderful. It sounds like what would happen if Dr. Seuss wrote a middle-grade novel.
Oh my god….Peanut Butter and Jenny is the WINNER!!!! Go write that shit now. LOL
Count Till You Hear Thunder
The Difference Between a Duck
What Color Was the Bear?
Here are the plot descriptions for the books. You can match any description to any title and it will make just as much sense.
(1.) Maya discovers that she can earn money by selling MASH notes to her classmates, because they’re convinced her fortunes always come true. But Maya’s own future is harder to predict, and it may not be a happy one.
(2.) Two parallel stories, set 150 years apart, about a house on the Underground Railroad and the troubled girl who moves in generations later.
(3.) Lucas finds out that his little brother has never had an imaginary friend, so he invents one on his behalf. He’s decided to make up 100 stories about the imaginary friend, so his brother can read them when Lucas isn’t around. Because, you see, Lucas is dying.
I have to say I laughed out loud when I got to the last sentence of no. 3 (because I have a heart of stone).
ok #3 made me laugh so hard my stomach hurts. This is truly the best post ever! I can’t wait to check it for new entries.
My titles:
Ruffles on my mother’s shirt
Dinosaurs and comet’s
Subtle
Subtle would fit in well with Travis Jonker’s old post about creating faux YA novels: http://100scopenotes.com/2009/07/28/create-your-debut-ya-cover/
(Also, I like “Count Till You Hear Thunder” as a title)
The Many Curses of Ariella Cline
When No One Comes Home For Dinner
Bronze Stars, Blue Cars
But I Need You Now
Wheat Bread and Other Awful Things
When Shorty Came Home
Just do a bunch of “Hope Is” or “Fields Of”titles, and you’ll be Newbery ready.
Hope is a Hot Air Balloon
Fields of Hot Air Balloons
Hope is a Pink Eraser
Fields of Pink Erasers
Hope is a Four Leaf Clover
Fields of Four Leaf Clovers
Hope is a Melting Ice Cream Cone
Fields of Melting Ice Cream Cones
You can also do “Beyond the” titles. Works just as well.
Beyond the Hot Air Balloon
Beyond the Pink Eraser
Beyond the Four Leaf Clover
Beyond the Melting Ice Cream Cone
A Hot Air Balloon is a Thing with Feathers. No, that can’t be right.
On second thought….change “Hope Is” to “Hope Like”.
Hope Like a Hot Air Balloon
Hope Like a Pink Eraser
Hope Like a Melting Ice Cream Cone.
Hope Like a Four Leaf Clover
Was cleaning out my desk and found a new one in a drawer that I’d scribbled down years ago.
The Blueberry Heir
Both its homonym titles would also fly, I think:
The Blueberry Hair
The Blueberry Hare
These are sooooooo funny! And they’re all such good titles! You all need to start writing these books right away. Daniel, the Lucas story must happen. Automatic movie option.
Maybe I Won’t
12 year-old Tenney must decide whether to move back in with her mother, newly released from a rehab facility, or remain with her loving Grandpa who lives in the tiny seaside town of Limpet. However, there is something Tenney doesn’t know about Grandpa… (he’s terminally ill, naturally)
These posts are hilarious and inspired, just what I need to make me laugh during SRC madness.
From the European collection…..
Mao and the Magpies – a dog owned by a working class family in Dublin, Ireland looks back sadly on the days his owner took him hunting. Now even more depressed than is culturally expected of an Irish animal, he seeks the companionship of couple of new age magpies.
Gob and Bones – two brainy and plain sisters solve crimes in a small Scottish village while encouraging each other’s eating disorders.
London Bridge is Falling Down – Tommy gets separated from his parents during a vacation to London and becomes dependent on Garret, a gay street teen who is addicted to drugs. Is Tommy gay – or just displaying the appropriate upper middle class amount of understanding and compassion?
Re: Daniel’s #2 – I just finished reading THE MAPMAKER’S CHILDREN, an adult novel by Sarah McCoy, with a similar plot description, alternating chapters/viewpoints between John Brown’s daughter in the 1860’s and a troubled woman who moves into an Underground RR house 150 years later. Great idea though!!
Pity it’s for adults. THE MAPMAKER’S CHILDREN would also make a good Newbery Award title.
Best. Comment. Thread. Ever.
Also, I’m feeling like the The Twelfth of Wonderful would work as Middle Grade, YA OR terrible rom-com starring Kate Hudson and Jason Biggs. Or Katherine Heigl and Vince Vaughn. Or Jennifer Lopez and Gerard Butler. Or Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher. I COULD DO THIS ALL DAY.