Looking for Newbery - Sir Gawain the True

I picked up Sir Gawain the True by Gerald Morris from the library multiple times, but I just never go around to reading it up until this point.  But when perusing one of my favorite places for Mock Newbery titles, I saw that Sir Gawain made the shortlist of the Heavy Medal blog at SLJ.  I knew it was time to get this book from the library one last time and actually read it!

But in this post, I'm not going to talk about Sir Gawain the True's literary merits.  I'm just going to say that this book was flat out F-U-N!!  It's the kind of book to which kids will gravitate, especially boys, though as a female, I had belly laugh after belly laugh myself, so girls might be amused as I was.  There are great fights, people getting bopped on the head, magical elements, dragon slaying, and beheadings.  And the illustrations by Aaron Renier are perfect for this book - my favorite illustration involves a knight wearing bunny slippers.  Kids will love this!!

But through all the humor, there actually is a great message for kids about staying true to your word and being polite.  And knowing that, I am pleased to find out that there are other books Morris has written in this series - The Knights' Tales.

Now that I've written this post, I'm actually going to go back and read about why Nina and Jonathan put Sir Gawain the True on their mock Newbery shortlist.  Regardless, I'm so happy I finally read it and can now share it with students.  Sir Gawain is pure entertainment!!