< Newbery Medal and Honor Books
Given the Newbery Award's prestige it would be easy to assume that the award winners are all excellent books for children. The Biblioguides Team has not found this to be the case. We always want to provide parents with the information they need to make the best book decisions for their families. With that goal in mind, we've put together a complete list of all medal winners and honor books since inception, and the Biblioguides Review Team is working together to read our way through the winners and to provide a review. Where we have not yet reviewed a book, a description directly from the dust jacket or from the publisher has been provided. In some cases, we have shared a brief synopsis from The Newbery and Caldecott Awards: A Guide to the Medal and Honor Books (1999).
Reviews are the thoughts and opinions of the particular reviewer and do not necessarily represent all members of the team. Reviews will continue to be added as the team reads more of the Newbery books. We hope this list will help you familiarize yourself with the various winners and provide the necessary information to determine which books would be a good fit for your family!
Waterless Mountain
By: Laura Adams Armer
Medal Winner
NOT REVIEWED
Admirably told with a quiet authority in limpid and poetic prose, Waterless Mountain is a sincere and beautiful story of a present-day Navaho Indian boy, full of imagination and poetry and the dignity of his race.
The eight years of his training in a deep understanding of the ancient religion of his people as well as in a practical knowledge of material existence is vividly painted against the arid sand wastes. This portrayal of the life of a tribe that has lived for centuries in Northern Arizona gives the reader also an acquaintance with the animals, trees, prehistoric cliff-dwellings of the west and the mystical beauty of the legends and traditions of the Navaho through the eyes and mind of the hero. The author is well known in the South-west for the many copies of the sand paintings she has made for the Rockfeller Museum of Santa Fe.
From the dust jacket
Boy of the South Seas
By: Eunice Tietjens
Illustrated by: Myrtle Sheldon
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
When a ship arrives in the harbor of the Marquesas Islands, young Teiki's curiosity gets ahold of him, and he climbs aboard and falls asleep. He awakens when the vessel is under sail and there is no turning back. At the island of Moorea, he swims ashore and makes a new life for himself.
From The Newbery and Caldecott Awards: A Guide to the Medal and Honor Books (1993)
Calico Bush
By: Rachel Field
Illustrated by: Allen Lewis
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
This is the story of Marguerite Ledoux, a "bound out girl," of Colonial days. We meet her on shipboard, when the Sargent family are moving from Marblehead to Mount Desert. Marguerite, remembering a very different life in France, is vividly impressed with every detail of this pioneer voyage; while she cares for the children, she listens to the talk and tales of the older people.
In Maine, she helps the Sargents make a new home. They are real pioneers, meeting Indians both friendly and hostile, gathering hard won crops from rocky soil, busy at wool-shearing, spinning and weaving. Legend and ballad have their share in the plot, especially the romantic ballad of the "calico bush," which you may see for yourself today in Maine.
You can also see the blue line of the mountains of the island named Mount Desert by Champlain. The Maine settlers made a quilt pattern from this line of "delectable mountains," and this pattern has been copied by Mr. Allen Lewis for the jacket and binding of the book. He also contributes some charming two-color woodblocks and other decorations.
"Calico Bush" will appeal to all those who enjoyed "Hitty," and is an equally distinguished piece of book-making.
From the dust jacket
The Fairy Circus
By: Dorothy P. Lathrop
Illustrated by: Dorothy P. Lathrop
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
When the circus tent goes up, it is so big that it encloses the places where the fairies live. They all scramble for the best view, and when it is over they decide to have a circus of their own. The fairies and woodland animals use grand imaginations as they re-create the circus in their own way.
From The Newbery and Caldecott Awards: A Guide to the Medal and Honor Books (1993)
Jane's Island
By: Marjorie Allen
Illustrated by: Maitland de Gogorza
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
Jane Thomas doesn't go native in the summer, her father says; she 'goes biological'. As a scientist, his interest centers in the Marine Laboratory at Woods Hole, but Jane's enthusiasm goes beyond his. Planaria and Nereis are her familiar friends. She keeps crabs under her bed, and uses dead fish for the punishment of her enemies. Ellen, the college freshman who has undertaken to keep Jane out of trouble for the summer, soon finds that she is the one who is being taken in hand. Life is never dull with Jane—nor quite safe—so Ellen is rapidly initiated into the pains and delights of the scientific vacation. Jane and Ellen are real girls and very likable. Their adventures together make exciting and fascinating reading for girls of twelve to sixteen.
From the dust jacket
Out of the Flame
By: Eloise Lownsbery
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
In the sixteenth century, Pierre is first a page then a squire as he becomes trained to be a knight in the court of Francis I. He attends tournaments, visits with great intellectuals, and learns music and botany with the royal children. Before the story ends, he and the children are abducted and released by pirates.
From The Newbery and Caldecott Awards: A Guide to the Medal and Honor Books (1993)
Truce of the Wolf and Other Tales of Old Italy
By: Mary Gould Davis
Illustrated by: Jay Van Everen
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
From Italy of long ago come these tales of men and animals and flowers. They rest in tradition, but the actual things they portray—the broom blossoming in the Springtime, the savory risotto cooked in the peasant's pot, the patient, burden-bearing donkey—are to be found today under the same blue skies.
Magic is in some of these stories. There are witches who turn human beings into cows and boars. There is the gentle, holy figure of St. Francis, using his transcending magic to save the people of Gubbio from the wolf that ravaged their village. And there is the tale of Nanni, the wise little donkey who comes to the rescue of the injured padre.
Miss Davis is Supervisor of Story-Telling in the New York Public Library. She has spent many summers in the hill towns of Italy and the people in these stories—old Elisabetta, Pietro and his wife Maria—are her friends. The tales emerge from the gracious touch of their narrator bright with the sunshine of Italy itself.
Ages 6-10
From the dust jacket
