Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes (1952 Newberry Medal Winner)

Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes

This book makes me mad. 1952 was the year when another, much more deserving book, was also eligible to win the Newberry Medal, but it was given to Ginger Pye instead. It may seem like a small detail, but the one of the honor books that year was Charlotte's Web. Even if you haven't had a lot of exposure to children's literature, you must have heard of this story, but who has heard anything of the adventures of Ginger Pye in the years since that book won the medal?

Next week I'll talk about what makes the honor book so great, but for now, let's talk about Ginger Pye.

My biggest problem with this book is that it cannot decide who the story is going to be about. When it starts, it seems like it will be the story of how Jerry Pye saves the money to get a dog that he really wants, but that part of the story ends very quickly. Maybe it will be the story of what a great dog Ginger Pye is. Or perhaps it is a mystery about where Ginger Pye has been taken.

This book is almost all of these story, but still none of them. In fact, it never really figures out what it is trying to do. There only a few moments that I really enjoyed while I was reading, but there were even more confusing moments.

Confusing/pointless moments?

• The kids go swimming at the quarry, and there is one boy that engages in "vertical swimming." What is vertical swimming? Well, you might think that this boy likes to dive down as far as he can go, but no, vertical swimming means that he likes to swim under water. This is a huge deal for some reason. The boy also loses swimming races because even though he is the fastest swimmer, you can't win if you go underwater. This has no purpose in the rest of the story.
• Ginger is abducted after Thanksgiving dinner because the dog is put outside, but the children are the only ones that are interested in doing anything about finding Ginger.
• The story is filled with the children trying to find Ginger, but they never really do anything to solve the mystery. All they know is that the culprit might wear a yellow hat. They find a yellow hat in the woods one day and make a crayon mark inside the hat. (Big deal.)
• At the beginning of the book Jerry's biggest dilemma is if the cat will be upset if the family gets a dog.

Good points?

• There is an entire chapter devoted to Ginger trying to figure out where Jerry goes during the day. Ginger manages to track Jerry by following his nose and even finds Jerry's pencil that was dropped while hanging in a tree. Once Ginger finds the school he also manages to climb the fire escape to the classroom window. This chapter is great because we get inside Ginger's head. We get to follow the dog and get inside its mind. Why couldn't the entire book be like this?
• When Jerry is trying to raise money to get his dog, he takes a job cleaning the church pews, and the brother, sister, and toddler uncle figure out how to shuttle the uncle across the pews to clean them quickly.
• Um, that's honestly all I have.

So, I don't think there is a lot of mystery about my feelings on this book. I can't conceive of using it for a class of students, so I won't give a list of ways to use it with your students. Next weekend I'll talk about one of the 1952 honor books, Charlotte's Web, a much better book.