< 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!
★
REVIEW TEAM FAVORITE
The Matchlock Gun
By: Walter Edmonds
Illustrated by: Paul Lantz
Medal Winner
Reviewed by: Sara Masarik
Also read and recommended by: Deanna Knoll, Diane Pendergraft, Sandy Hall, Sara Masarik, Sherry Early
A truly excellent book, this one shows us how to be brave and steadfast.
★
REVIEW TEAM FAVORITE
Down Ryton Water
By: Eva Roe Gaggin
Illustrated by: Elmer Hader
Honor
Reviewed by: Sherry Early
Also read and recommended by: Deanna Knoll, Sandy Hall
Down Ryton Water is a 1942 Newbery Honor book about the Pilgrims–-published back when children’s books were really meaty and challenging reads. It’s 369 pages of pilgrim wanderings and family building and moving and rearranging and traveling and birthing and marrying.
The (sainted) Pilgrims come across as real people with personalities and foibles and humor and salty language (nothing that’s shocking for nowadays) and full lives. The book focuses on the Over family: Mother Orris Brode Over, a gardener and herbalist; Father Matt Over, a farmer; Young Matt, five years old as the story opens in Scrooby, England; and baby Remember, “the damp woman child” as Young Matt calls her. The family soon grows: Young Matt’s young uncle John Brode, an adopted orphan child named Winifrett, a new baby boy born in Holland and named for the Dutch St. Nicholas, and later a young Native American teen named Wisset, all join the Over family.
It’s a book about family and about continuity of that family amidst pilgrim upheavals and separations and reunions. I found it encouraging and full of wisdom nuggets.
Read full review
George Washington's World
By: Genevieve Foster
Honor
Reviewed by: Sandy Hall
Also read and recommended by: Sara Masarik
Many children's history stories and books delve deep into a person's life or an important event, but Genevieve Foster in this book instead takes a "slice" of history and explores what was happening across the globe during the life span of George Washington. Who else was alive when Washington was born? What was started in Europe when Washington was a soldier? Who was born in France when Washington was a farmer in 1768? Who was beheaded in Europe when Washington was President? Often when studying the life of an important historic person, we don't even know what else was going on in the world at the same time. Foster's book gives an extensive look at events and people across the globe that occurred at the same time. Fascinating! The writing is narrative, and the book is illustrated by Foster in black line drawings. I highly recommend all of Foster's books like this. She also authored shortened versions for younger readers such as 1776: Year of Independence. Some of Foster's books have been reprinted, thankfully. Enjoy history from this "horizontal" perspective!
Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison
By: Lois Lenski
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
On a spring day in 1758, a rumor of raiding Indians reached the Jemison farmhouse in eastern Pennsylvania. A few hours later, a band of warriors surrounded the house, burst into the kitchen, and carried the family away captive. Mary, the younger daughter, was taken over the Allegheny Mountains to southern Ohio and later to a Seneca Indian village on the Genesee River in what is now western New York. Though Mary had several thrilling "near escapes" and later could have returned to the settlements of white men, she remained with the Indians. As the "White Woman of the Genesee" she is famous today in American colonial history.
Indian Captive is an authentic reconstruction in fascinating story form of Mary Jemison's capture, flight, and early years with the Indians. Lois Lenski has brought her special gifts for research, for writing, and for vigorous drawing to this true American story of a white girl's life among the Indians. The many drawings are the first authentic illustrations portraying Seneca Indian life and make the work a valuable piece of Americana.
From the dust jacket
Little Town on the Prairie
By: Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrated by: Helen Sewell
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
This story continues the adventures of the family we first met in Mrs. Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods. Ma and Pa and Mary and Laura move to Kansas, which was Indian country in those days. For many days they traveled in the big covered wagon, across the empty prairies and through rushing rivers. When they found a place they thought would be nice to live in, Pa built a log cabin. Ma helped, while Mary and Laura watched the baby and looked for jackrabbits and prairie hens.
Indian country proved to be exciting. Some nights there were wolves, quite close, and more than once Mary and Laura saw Indians—chiefs and squaw and brown-skinned children just their own age, and papooses. Windy northers sometimes blew, and once the chimney caught on fire when Pa was away.
But the family was happy. Just as they made the best of what was at hand—they planted and plowed, hunted wild ducks and turkeys, chopped logs and firewood, and gathered grass for the cattle. Mary and Laura liked it all, and when, at the end of the year, they moved on in the covered wagon, they were sorry to see the last of the little log cabin on the plains.
From the dust jacket
