The View from Saturday

　　本書榮獲1997美國紐伯瑞大獎 (The Newbery Medal for Best Children\’s Book)紐伯瑞大獎是由美國圖書館學會（American Library Association - ALA）的分支機構 -- 美國圖書館兒童服務學會(Association for Library Service to Children)於1922年創設的獎項。該獎項是為紀念十八世紀的英國書商，約翰‧紐伯瑞（John Newbery）而設置，得獎者必須是對美國兒童文學有傑出貢獻者，並以美國公民及永久居民為限，自1922年起每年頒發給前一年度最傑出的美國兒童圖書作者。http://www.ala.org/alsc/newbery.html

HOW HAD MRS. OLINSKI CHOSEN her sixth-grade Academic Bowl team? She had a number of answers. But were any of them true? How had she really chosen Noah and Nadia and Ethan and Julian? And why did they make such a good team?
It was a surprise to a lot of people when Mrs. Olinski's team won the sixth-grade Academic Bowl contest at Epiphany Middle School. It was an even bigger surprise when they beat the seventh grade and the eighth grade, too. And when they went on to even greater victories, everyone began to ask: How did it happen?
It happened at least partly because Noah had been the best man (quite by accident) at the wedding of Ethan's grandmother and Nadia's grandfather. It happened because Nadia discovered that she could not let a lot of baby turtles die. It happened when Ethan could not let Julian face disaster alone. And it happened because Julian valued something important in himself and saw in the other three something he also valued.
Mrs. Olinski, returning to teaching after having been injured in an automobile accident, found that her Academic Bowl team became her answer to finding confidence and success. What she did not know, at least at first, was that her team knew more than she did the answer to why they had been chosen.
This is a tale about a team, a class, a school, a series of contests and, set in the midst of this, four jewel-like short stories -- one for each of the team members -- that ask questions and demonstrate surprising answers.