American award-winning children's literature has sometimes been on the over-earnest side; it seems more difficult to win prizes for writing a funny, even irreverent book. What can one expect, therefore, from Virginia Hamilton's M. C. Higgins, The Great, which has scooped this year's pool by landing the National Book Award, the Newbery Medal and the Boston Globe award? Is it three times as good, or merely three times more earnest than previous winners?

Perhaps a bit of both; Virginia Hamilton writes in heavy but compelling prose. Characters lumber rather than leap from the page, but once in focus they make their mark….

Certainly, this is a sincere and highly original work. An English audience may have occasional trouble with the vocabulary—it is worth discovering what exactly a "dude" might be before starting—but generally the story has enough force to keep most adult readers going. But not...