Jacob Have I Loved: A Newbery Award Winner

by Katherine Paterson

Poor sooks. They’d never take a trip down the Bay to lay their eggs before they died. The fact that there wasn’t much future for the Jimmies once they were packed in eelgrass didn’t bother me so much. Males, I thought, always have a chance to live no matter how short their lives, but females, ordinary, ungifted ones, just get soft and die.

Sooks are female crabs and Jimmies are male crabs. Her jealousy of the freedom men enjoy gives her a harsh outlook on all males.

was young and able, as my exams had proved. Without God, or a man, I could still conquer a small corner of the world—if I wanted to.