Book Awards Reading Challenge

For my 2nd book selection, I chose a Newbery winner, Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins. As I explain in my longer review here, I was very disappointed in this book and quite confused by it as well. I would call myself a "deep" reader and this book just went incredibly far over my head.

Told in many vignettes and some poems, Criss Cross follows Debbie and Harry, two 14 year olds on journeys to make themselves better. Harry feels as if something about himself is missing and Debbie just wants to be another person altogether. A multitude of secondary characters is also involved in the story, as are strange drawings on many of the pages which adds to my interesting confusion.

Overall, I do not quite understand why this book won the Newbery Award and would looove for one of you to help explain that to me. Maybe I just missed something. Again, for my longer review, go here. Hopefully September's book selection will be better received on my part!