Annal:1972 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature
From AwardAnnals
Results of the National Book Award in the year 1972. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine: Or The Hithering Thithering Djinn
- 1972 NBA–Youth winner
- Score: 10.22
One morning in 1887, Mathilda went out into the back yard and discovered that a mysterious Chinese house had planted itself there overnight. She had wanted a fire engine, but the mysterious Chinese house was intriguing too. From inside came strange sounds: growls, howls, whispering, trumpeting.
Plucky Mathilda walks right in. She finds all sorts of peculiar things: a sulky captured pirate, a giant popcorn-popping machine, an elephant that falls downhill once a day—truly “every kind of flawless flourishy footlooseness.” Mathilda gets to see everything in every…
