< 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
Sarah, Plain and Tall
By: Patricia MacLachlan
Medal Winner
Reviewed by: Deanna Knoll
Recommended age: 6+
Also read and recommended by: Christine Kallner, Diane Pendergraft, Sandy Hall, Terri Shown
Patricia MacLachlan writes the speed of the prairie—sort of a Wendell Berry for kids. Telling the story of a mail order bride complete with the correspondence, she explores the expectations, fears and realities of melding the life of a single woman with the neediness of a motherless family in the harsh prairies of middle America during the early 20th century.
My youngest son and I read through all 5 books in the series as a read-aloud and enjoyed each one. The journal entries (completed by different family members in each separate book) make the story become personal from several points of view.
This book is like food in a crockpot, a little soft and mushy, but full of complex flavors and perfect for a quiet evening at home.
Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun
By: Rhoda Blumberg
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
People in the fishing village of Shimoda, Japan were the first to spot four huge hulks, two streaming smoke, on the ocean's surface, approaching the shore. "Giant dragons puffing smoke," cried some. "Alien ships of fire," cried others...Surely something horrible was happening!
In 1853 few Japanese knew that the Western world—or a country called America—even existed. Now Commodore Matthew C. Perry had come with a letter from President Millard Fillmore asking the Emperor to open Japan's harbors to American ships.
Even as the panic caused by "the Black Ships of the evil men" spread through the Land of the Shogun, Americans and Japanese began taking the first tentative steps toward the Treaty of Kanagawa.
Rhoda Blumberg illuminates the lively human side of the negotiations, showing how both peoples overcame fear and prejudice, largely because they were curious about one another. Readers will be entertained and informed by this well-researched, behind-the-scenes look at one of history's most significant diplomatic achievements.
From the dust jacket
Dogsong
By: Gary Paulsen
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
There were only Oogruk's dogs in the village now. The men hunted seal and caribou on snowmachines, and the dogs, long idle, grew fat.
They watched Russel approach with interested, slanted, deep eyes. He was always drawn to them. He'd heard they were good dogs—a good sled team—and he sensed the muscle in them, the readiness.
Russel himself was ready—but for what he was not sure. His father could not tell him. Perhaps Oogruk could, for even in his blindness the old man saw visions—and he saw into Russel.
Oogruk told him of songs and journeys. And almost before he knew it, Russel had taken the old man's sled out of the lean-to on the sea side of his house. And he had tried the well-tended weapons ranged along Oogruk's walls. And he had found five leather harnesses and unchained the lead dog and dragged it, growling, toward the gangline he had spread out in the snow. And it was as if all had waited for Russel Susskit to come.
With Oogruk's teaching, Russel commenced a dog run across his country, miles inland from the sea and to the sea again—across mountains and tundra and ice fields—across years, and back in time to learn of another Russel, a hunter of a mammoth, whose stone lamp Russel unearths, whose cunning with an ivory spear Russel unleashes.
And so it was that Russel came to find Nancy, a girl-woman hardly older than his 14 years, and of his time . . .
Gary Paulsen's telling of Russel and the dogs and their mythic, majestical run sings a song of its own.
From the dust jacket
