< 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!
Kira-Kira
By: Cynthia Kadohata
Medal Winner
NOT REVIEWED
kira-kira (kee ra kee ra): glittering; shining Glittering. That's how Katie Takeshima's sister, Lynn, makes everything seem. The sky is kira-kira because its color is deep but see-through at the same time. The sea is kira-kira for the same reason. And so are people's eyes. When Katie and her family move from a Japanese community in Iowa to the Deep South of Georgia, it's Lynn who explains to her why people stop on the street to stare. And it's Lynn who, with her special way of viewing the world, teaches Katie to look beyond tomorrow. But when Lynn becomes desperately ill, and the whole family begins to fall apart, it is up to Katie to find a way to remind them all that there is always something glittering—kira-kira—in the future.
From the publisher
Al Capone Does My Shirts
By: Gennifer Choldenko
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
Today I moved to Alcatraz, a twelve-acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water. I’m not the only kid who lives here. There are twenty-three other kids who live on the island because their dads work as guards or cooks or doctors or electricians for the prison, like my dad does. And then there are a ton of murderers, rapists, hit men, con men, stickup men, embezzlers, connivers, burglars, kidnappers and maybe even an innocent man or two, though I doubt it. The convicts we have are the kind other prisons don’t want. I never knew prisons could be picky, but I guess they can. You get to Alcatraz by being the worst of the worst. Unless you’re me. I came here because my mother said I had to.
From the publisher
★
REVIEW TEAM FAVORITE
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
By: Gary D. Schmidt
Honor
Reviewed by: Sara Masarik
Recommended age: 13+
Also read and recommended by: Christine Kallner, Diane Pendergraft, Sherry Early, Tanya Arnold
It is hard to review this book in a way that doesn’t spoil the ending but still gives you a sense of why this is so compelling. Because this is a work of historical fiction, I am tempted to tell you about the facts that inspired this tragic tale. I think, however, that I will let you decide for yourself what you wish to know before reading. The setting of this story is real. The characters are semi-real. The large events are mostly real and the small ones are added to draw us in and make us care. In some ways this is one of Schmidt’s gentler tales, but in other ways it is the hardest. I am glad to have read this. I will recommend this to teens and moms. I will probably do a book club on this one. And I will sob each time I do.
Read full review
The Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights
By: Russell Freedman
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
Marian Anderson loved to sing. Her deep, rich voice thrilled audiences the world over. By the mid-1930s she was a famed vocalist who had been applauded by European royalty, welcomed at the White House, and adored by appreciative listeners in concert halls across the United States. But because of her race, she was denied the right to sing at Constitution Hall, Washington's largest and finest auditorium.
Though Marian Anderson was not a crusader or a spokesperson by nature, her response to this injustice catapulted her into the center of the civil rights movement of the time. She came to stand for all black artists—and for all Americans of color—when, with the help of prominent figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt, she gave a landmark performance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that broke racial barriers and hastened the end of segregation in the arts.
Drawing on Anderson's own writings and other first-person accounts, Newbery medalist Russell Freedman shows readers a singer pursuing her art in the context of the social and political climate of the day. Profusely illustrated with contemporary photographs, here is an inspiring account of the life of a talented, determined artist who left her mark on musical and social history.
From the publisher
