Newbery Roundup #2: Plain Jane, Wrong Way Home, and First State of Being

Our second roundup of Newbery-buzzing books includes a graphic-novel fairy tale, an escape narrative, and a time-travel adventure.

Plain Jane and the Mermaid mixes fairy-tale elements with graphic-novel style.

Plain Jane and the Mermaid by Ver Brosgol. First Second, 2024, 352 pages

Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12

Recommended for: ages 8-15

Jane is recently an orphan, beset not only by the death of her wealthy parents, but by the fact they didn’t love her enough to provide for her well-being. Because she’s female, and unmarried, her parents’ estate passes to her obnoxious cousin, the closest living male relative. But if she marries, she’ll receive a generous dowry—and she knows the perfect candidate for a husband. It’s Peter, the fisherman’s son, whom she’s crushed on since girlhood. Jane is plain, no question about it, and Peter is beautiful but poor. And vain enough to consider himself way too good for his father’s career. Before they can seal a deal, however, Peter is lured into the ocean by the siren song of a mermaid. Desperate to rescue him, Jane finds unlikely help from an old woman who, in classic fairy-tale fashion, gives her three items to help her live under the sea—for three days only.

Though Peter doesn’t realize it at first, he needs to be rescued. His mermaid has sinister plans for him, and Jane’s determination will lead her into some terrifying situations. She will be aided by a seal who’s more than he seems and will come to surprising but well-founded conclusions about love and value. In her Author Note, Brosgol writes, “Seeing an ordinary-looking girl having an extraordinary adventure, learning to love herself for who she is rather than what she looks like, would have been a great antidote to all the Disney heroines I was ingesting.” Her girl readers may feel the same, but it’s a thrilling ride for all readers in this age group, with lively and clever graphic art.

Newbery Odds: Better than average, now that the graphic-novel ceiling has been broken by New Kid.

The Wrong Way Home is the only way a young girl can break free from a back-to-nature cult.

The Wrong Way Home by Kate O’Shaunessey. Knopf Books for Young Readers (PRH), 2024, 336 pages.

Reading Level: Middle Grades, 10-12

Recommended for: ages 12-14

“Before we came to live at the Ranch, Mom and I were like tumbleweeds. We never stayed anywhere for more than a year, maybe two.” But at the Ranch, Fern feels at home. Like the others, she lives off the land and eschews all food additives, polyester blends, and mass media, all prescribed by Dr. Ben. He’s their leader, protector, and father-figure, who is preparing them for an apocalypse of uncertain dimensions. Now he has unexpectedly singled our Fern for the honor of going through her rite of passage early—at the age of 12, instead of waiting until the usual age of 15. The rite can be dangerous, but Dr. Ben believes Fern has rare potential. Her mother, however, doesn’t seem to share that view. Mom has been acting weird lately. Even so, Fern doesn’t suspect anything amiss when the two of them meet a stranger who hands over the keys to a beat-up automobile, after which Mom gets behind the wheel and starts driving. She tells Fern they’re on a special mission from Dr. Ben.

But Mom just keeps driving, and they’re halfway across the country before Fern realizes she’s been kidnapped by her own mother. They end up at a resort town in northern California where her mother appears to have connections. Going along to get along is Fern’s best option, but secretly she’s plotting how to reach Dr. Ben so he can rescue her and bring Mom back to her senses. After so many years of sheltered living, though, she’s unwise about the ways of the world—how to even begin?

The Wrong Way Home is a window into how cults operate, just sinister enough to give kids the willies without going into graphic detail. It’s instructive that way, but a little too sunny in its conclusion, with a prominent lesbian character and some New Age touches.

Newbery Odds: Probably less than 50-50. Though the book has received a lot of positive attention, it doesn’t seem outstanding enough to break into the top ranks.

In The First State of Being, a time-traveler from the future changes the lives of kids in 1999. Or does he?

The First State of Being by Erin Entrada Kelly. Greenwillow, 2024, 272 pages

Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12

Recommended for: ages 10-15

Michael Rosario worries about a lot of things: his mother’s struggle to pay the bills, his hopeless crush on his 16-year-old babysitter Gibby, and most of all, Y2K. What happens when the power grid goes down, as he’s half-convinced it will? All he can do is filch an occasional canned good from the local grocery, but it won’t be enough. And yes, it’s stealing, but what if mere survival is in the balance?

Then a strange boy shows up at Fox Run Apartments—strange in more ways than one. His clothes are odd, he doesn’t seem to belong anywhere, and he’s ignorant about things everybody should know. But then, he knows things nobody else does. Yet. As it doesn’t take long for Michael and Gibby to discover, “Ridge” is from 2199, arriving in 1999 via a time-travel mechanism developed by his mother at the University of Delaware. Further, he has a book describing all the events of the next 20 years of Michael’s time but refuses to divulge any of it.

Will Michael be able to get his hands on the book and learn his future (and what he really needs to be worried about)? Will he get over his obsession with Gibby? And will Ridge be able to get back to his own time, especially after he stole his mother’s device to check out a period of history that always fascinated him? (She is going to be soooo mad.)

Time travel is an intriguing subject, and this is solid example of the genre—though not, to my mind, especially outstanding. The book has been compared to When You Reach Me, winner of the 2010 Newbery medal, and has some similar twists. We hear the usual warnings about the limits of science and not messing with the past, and there are some heartwarming moments. Aside from a couple of misuses of God’s name, there are no objectionable elements, though it’s interesting that the University of Delaware plays such an oversize role in time-travel technology.

Newbery Odds: Probably not. The First State of Being was a National Book Award runner-up this year, and it’s rare for Newbery and NBA to overlap. Also, Kelly has won twice: the gold for Hello, Universe and silver for We Dream of Space. That’s usually enough. But we’ll see.

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Plain Jane and the Mermaid, The Wrong Way Home, and The First State of Being are available to order from Amazon.