From the Bookshelf of Mock Newbery 2026…

Those Kids from Fawn Creek

Erin Entrada Kelly

Start date: November 1, 2022

Finish date: November 30, 2022

Discussion: Newbery 2023

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Newbery 2023

* 2023 Mock Newbery Winner
By Kristen · 1 post · 136 views

last updated Jan 30, 2023 06:00AM

* 2023 ALA Newbery Award
By Kristen · 31 posts · 204 views

last updated Apr 25, 2023 05:15PM

What Members Thought

Sep 13, 2022 Dest rated it it was amazing

Shelves: middle-grade, school, everyday-life, tween, bullies, friendship

This book reminded me of a cross between The Hundred Dresses and Stargirl. Both of those books were influential for me when I was young. Naturally, I loved this.

EEK does a lot of neat things narratively. Here are a few that stood out to me:

1. She tells the story from different points of view using close third-person narration. I'm a big fan of this, even though sometimes it took me a minute to figure out whose head I was in.

2. She throws a lot of characters at you quickly. In fact, for the fi This book reminded me of a cross between The Hundred Dresses and Stargirl. Both of those books were influential for me when I was young. Naturally, I loved this.

EEK does a lot of neat things narratively. Here are a few that stood out to me:

1. She tells the story from different points of view using close third-person narration. I'm a big fan of this, even though sometimes it took me a minute to figure out whose head I was in.

2. She throws a lot of characters at you quickly. In fact, for the first chunk of the book I was having trouble keeping all the students straight. But slowly they all came into focus for me and it felt intentional. Like in the beginning the reader is like Orchid trying to get to know everyone and how they relate to each other.

3. She breaks up the narrative with little scenes of partnerships during science class. This was super fun and I looked forward to those partner scenes and enjoyed them. Especially Daniel + anybody.

4. In some ways Orchid is the main character, but she is also mysterious. This is the way the book most reminded me of Stargirl and The Hundred Dresses. Orchid = the unusual girl who arrives and changes everyone's perspectives and then departs. There's such a delicate balance here of making Orchid as a character feel real and unreal at the same time:

We never know her real name.
She gets the last word with her "I Am" poem.
She has a full backstory.
There's no hint about her future.

5. The buildup to the dance kept me reading. (I read this in about 2.5 hours in one sitting.) It's such a classic school story plot with the climax at a school dance, but you know the classics are classic for a reason. When the drama and fun went down at the dance it felt expected but also satisfying.

On the critical side, I didn't love that Renni was like pure villain energy. But EEK put a lot into understanding Janie's interiority and I saw Renni as an extreme version of Janie. So it's not as if the book is about bad kids vs. good kids. Other than Renni all of the kids were realistically complicated.

I think EEK could have a Newbery threepeat with this book. It's probably my favorite of hers next to Lalani of the Distant Sea. ...more

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