< 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!
Caddie Woodlawn
By: Carol Ryrie Brink
Medal Winner
NOT REVIEWED
In 1935, when Caddie Woodlawn was awarded the John Newbery Medal as the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children, The Horn Book Magazine wrote: "This is a spirited story that has plenty of action and strength. Girls of eleven, twelve and thirteen will welcome Caddie Woodlawn with enthusiasm."
Today, the daughters of those girls welcome Caddie with equal enthusiasm and the book seems destined to be read by each new generation for years to come. Now many times reprinted, the story of the tomboy pioneer girl and her exciting adventures on the Wisconsin frontier has a lively, lasting appeal, one that is best summer up by Caddie herself when she says: "Folks keep growing from one person into another all their lives, and life is just a lot of everyday adventures. Well, whatever life is, I like it."
Every young reader will agree.
From the dust jacket
All Sail Set: A Romance of the Flying Cloud
By: Armstrong Sperry
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
On the wharf the crowd surged and shouted. The ship was under weigh. Cries and cheers and goodbys reached across a widening gap of water. The Flying Cloud was off for California a-quiver with life, eager for what lay ahead, and Enoch Thacher was aboard her—aboard the ship of his dreams which he had watched grow in the Boston shipyards. Built by Donald McKay, it was a challenge to the steamboat and the gold newly discovered in California.
With this young ship's apprentice you will live through the thrills and tragedies of this maiden voyage of the greatest of clipper ships around the Horn in 1851. Through the teeth of terrific gales, with the wash of tons of leaden water over her decks, even mutiny on board, she fought her way through the sea to San Francisco in a week's less time than had any other ship before her.
From the dust jacket
The Good Master
By: Kate Seredy
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
A story about the boy Jancsi who lives with his mother and father, the "Good Master" on a farm in Hungary; about his cousin Kate who comes from the city to live with them, and whose headstrong ways and tempers are set right by the kindly understanding of the Good Master; about Kate's and Jancsi's races on horseback across the plains, their fun at the fair, their trouble with the gypsies; about the shepherd who made wood carvings, and whose tales kept the children listening till sundown—a colorful story of the customs and people of the great Hungarian plains.
*For boys and girls from 8 to 12
From the dust jacket
Honk: The Moose
By: Phil Stong
Illustrated by: Kurt Wiese
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
Two small boys had been hunting on the outskirts of a little Minnesota town one cold winter's day. They skied back to the livery stable where Ivar's father boarded the horses and mules from the nearby mines. "I wish," Waino said dreamily, "that had been a good old moose I shot." Ivar fired his air gun down the corridor between the stalls to show what he would have done. All at once there was a very sad sound. It went "Haawwnk—hawnk—hawnk—haawwnnkk!" The two boys dropped everything.
"What do you think that is, Ivar?" "It—it sounded like an automobile." "Automobiles don't care if you shoot them," Waino suggested. "Yeah," Ivar admitted. "Maybe it was a moose," Waino said softly. It was a moose!
What can you do with a moose? In the first place, Honk was such a hungry moose you couldn't help being sorry for him. About a ton of Ivar's father's hay fixed that. But Honk was naturally such a sad moose you had to be good to him. So Honk stayed on.
Just as this author and artist, with such perfect humor and understanding, collaborated in FARM BOY to present a true picture of an American farm, here they have happily combined to depict a genuine small town, with its friendly people, its community center—the livery stable—its close-huddled homes and streets and, most of all, its SMALL BOYS!
For boys and girls from 7 to 10
From the dust jacket
Young Walter Scott
By: Elizabeth Janet Gray
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
This is the story of a real boy, gay, whole-souled, and vigorous, who lived in the Scotland of the eighteenth century; a boy who would walk as far and climb as high as any other his own age though, being lame, he could not go so fast as they. It is the story of a boy who might have retreated into the safe glory of schoolroom brilliance but who preferred to meet the other lads on their own ground and make his place in the Yard, even though he had to slip away to the lonely top of Arthur's Seat to read the books that set him to dreaming; a boy who led the George Square lads and fought with Green-Breeks; a shy lad who met the great poet Burns and named him the author of a quotation; a lad who tramped all over the countryside with his companions, to fish or to explore; a young Hercules who offered his umbrella to a girl in a green mantle.
It is the story of the boyhood of Walter Scott, who would never have been the man he was, had he not first been the boy he was.
High-School Age.
From the dust jacket
