The Washington Post covers the debate over the value of the Newbery Medal, “asking whether the books that have won recently are so complicated and inaccessible to most children that they are effectively turning off kids to reading. Of the 25 winners and runners-up chosen from 2000 to 2005, four of the books deal with death, six with the absence of one or both parents and four with such mental challenges as autism. Most of the rest deal with tough social issues.” Associate professor of literacy education at St. John’s University John Beach “studied 30 years of book lists chosen […]