The Year of Billy Miller

When I was going through the library trying to figure out which book I should pick for the Newbury Award category, one particular cover really grabbed my attention. Although the cover is very simple, I was drawn by how the title flowed on the page. I know it is a common phrase to “not judge a book by its cover”, however, in this case, I liked the book just as much as I liked the cover. Although this chapter book had a substantial amount of pages, I was able to breeze through it fairly quickly. I thought that the author did a good job of keeping the reader engaged and giving a very in-depth description of the main character, Billy Miller. Billy is just starting his second- grade school year and explains how nervous he is about going back to school because he now looks different due to the fact that he got into an accident over summer and hurt his head. He is worried that the other students will make fun of him and that his teacher will be mean. I could relate to this because at the beginning of my fourth grade school year I had broken my nose and my nose was not centered in my face for a couple weeks before I had surgery.  I was so nervous as to what my classmates were going to think of me.  It ended up being okay, thankfully, but I remember being so scared.  I feel that children are always nervous about how they will be perceived at the start of a school year because acceptance and “fitting in” are very important to them. In the case of Billy, the reader is able to see that he becomes stronger and more mature as the accident helps build his character. Although things are not always easy for Billy, this book provides a strong message that is good for any child to learn. This book is a good transition from picture books to chapter books because one of the challenges for children to grasp is that they now they need to form their own mental image instead of seeing pictures that they were used to as children. Kevin Henkes makes this transition for children easier as he places little black and white pictures on several of the pages. I really liked this idea because there are still some little pictures, but it still qualifies as a chapter book. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and was glad that I found it!

Henkes, Kevin. The Year of Billy Miller. 2013. Print.