I started reading this book the day it was announced as the Newbery winner (thanks to Amazon's sample of the Kindle version) and got one of the first holds on it at the public library. I finally finished it today, because it is due back tomorrow, and I can't renew it. I just kept putting it down and picking up other books, but I was determined to finish it. 
 Set in Kansas during the Depression, with many flashbacks to 1918 (with the extra abstraction of interleaved letters from a WWI soldier), this historical novel was a double helping of school. It was so stuffed with facts that it was hard to tell what was relevant to the story, and what was just part of the jumbled lesson plan. ("My money's betting that Shady ran a speakeasy. He's got the perfect setup to have run one of those secret saloons with the hidden cabinets and movable bartop for hiding illegal alcohol away when the law would come calling.") 
 The focus kept wandering, too. Was it about the Depression? WWI? The KKK? Temperance? Spanish Flu? Labor unions? Immigrants? These things are all mentioned, but none in any depth, which would make it not that great even as a history lesson. (That would be fine, if the story were actually compelling. I was not drawn in by any of the "mysteries".) At one point the characters even held a newspaper contest, asking folks to write in with their memories, to include a few things that weren't mentioned elsewhere. ("Remember when the Bone Dry Bill was passed, outlawing all alcohol in Kansas... Most of us didn't remember it then either...") (view spoiler)[Also, since the whole point of the exercise was to see people's handwriting, it would have been cool to include them in the text hand-written. Only one was done in a handwriting font, and I could not see how it had "the last letter trailing off... like a dying breath." (hide spoiler)] 
 I did learn a few things, but I did not relate to them any more in the context of the story because I didn't care about any of the characters. Too bad.