Although I have read eight more Newbery books since my last update, I will only share two this evening.

The two books are both by Mabel Leigh Hunt.

Hunt was born in Indiana to Quaker parents. She lived her entire life in Indiana. She was a librarian in Indianapolis for about a dozen years before she started to write full time.

Hunt wrote many books for children of different ages. Most of her books were Historical Fiction and several of them dealt with Quaker themes.

Better Known as Johnny Appleseed was a Newbery runner-up in 1951. The book tells the story of John Chapman who was better known to us as Johnny Appleseed.

The book explores both fact and fiction about Johnny as it tells the story of his life.

I have always enjoyed reading about Johnny Appleseed, especially as my Grandma at one time had told us that we were cousins to Johnny Appleseed.

As I found out more about my Chapman ancestry, I learned that we were not cousins to Johnny. See my post Johnny Appleseed for more information about my search to find out the answer.

However, I still enjoyed this book as Hunt did a great job of telling us more about this wonderful man who helped spread apples across the middle of our country.

The second book is Have You Seen Tom Thumb which was a Newbery runner-up in 1943.

This book tells the story of Charles Sherwood Stratton who was better know as General Tom Thumb. The book is richly illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg.

The book covers most of the life of Tom Thumb. You can tell that Hunt did a lot of research into his life and his surroundings. The book is Historical Fiction, but reads more like a Biography. The dialog she created is believable and she tells a good story of his relationships with his family and also P.T. Barnum.

Both of these books were definitely worthy of Newbery Honor awards.

Steven