The Newbery Award Plot Generator

telophase has created a Newbery Award plot generator for all your Problem Novel needs, ready to create a needlessly depressing book suitable to teach innocent children that this world sucks and there's nothing you can do about it!

She made the generator, and I provided titles and plot elements from actual Newbery books and other awesomely depressing children's novels.

War Story

In the beginning, an alcoholic boy is diagnosed with ADHD after losing a finger in a cooking accident. Things seem to be looking up when he befriends a Holocaust survivor with cancer. But when his new friend dies in childbirth, he learns a valuable lesson about the hollow cruelty of the American Dream and that death is the end.

Please Don't Believe

In the beginning, a melancholy teenage boy is diagnosed with foot cancer after his parents enroll in clown college. Things seem to be looking up when he befriends a boy who was locked in a box by his abusive parents who gets mocked as "Box Boy". But when his new friend dies of the plague, he learns a valuable lesson about emotional labor and that sometimes people you love die in stupid accidents.

A Pie of Hot Soil

In the beginning, an alcoholic teenager is diagnosed with scleroderma after accidentally killing his best friend in a drunk driving accident. Things seem to be looking up when he befriends a man who just got out of solitary confinement. But when his new friend reveals their tragic past as a Holocaust survivor, he learns a valuable lesson about toxic waste and that people with cognitive disabilities make great friends, up until the point that they disappear and are never seen again.

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Spoils of War & A Time for Grief (Tales of the Apt # 1 & 2), by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Two collections of short stories about my beloved bug people.

The first, Spoils of War, takes place entirely during the Wasp invasion of the Commonweal and is unsurprisingly gloomy. My favorite stories were about a Thorn Bug woman’s private war, a Wasp soldier and his Dragonfly opponent who share a moment of respect and understanding in the middle of the war, and a Roach’s search for his kidnapped daughter. But a lot of them blurred together into “war is hell.”

A Time for Grief covered a much wider span of time and so was less gloomy, though still often fairly dark. A number of the stories are in distinct genres, like a noir private eye story, a backstage theatre story, a western horror story, kitchen sink gritty realism in the slums of Helleron, etc. This was really fun and I liked those stories a lot.

I really hope Tchaikovsky writes more stories (or full novels!) in this world. He clearly has it all so well worked out, and there’s so many corners still unexplored.

Spoils of War (Tales of the Apt Book 1)



A Time For Grief (Tales of the Apt Book 2)