< 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
Adam of the Road
By: Elizabeth Janet Gray
Illustrated by: Robert Lawson
Medal Winner
Reviewed by: Deanna Knoll
Recommended age: Age 8+
Also read and recommended by: Sandy Hall, Sherry Early, Terri Shown
A rollicking road trip through 13th century England makes for lively reading about Adam, a minstrel's son, and his devoted spaniel. The author's ability to write an authentic story from this time period is impressive and she manages to keep the reader glued to the story until the very last page. In this coming-of-age story, Adam is an independent, savvy traveler who is trying to determine what he wants to do with his life while searching for his father and his dog. As the reader accompanies him up and down and all around, there are fascinating characters and places to be explored. It's a worthy read.
Have You Seen Tom Thumb?
By: Mabel Leigh Hunt
Illustrated by: Fritz Eichenberg
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
An American biography so happy and valuable in subject, so colorful in the background of his career, that one wonders how Charles Sherwood Stratton has so long been overlooked by American biographers. But one is glad that the "man in miniature" beloved by the entire world as General Tom Thumb, has waited for the consummate skill displayed by Mabel Leigh Hunt in telling his story.
With enthusiastic research, understanding, and deep affection, she has recreated the life and career of Tom Thumb from the moment when the master showman, P. T. Barnum, discovered him in his Bridgeport home at five years old. Tom Thumb was a midget, but not a dwarf; a personality lovable as well as unique; a distinguished artist of the theatre; a miniature man among men. His career from 1842 to 1883 is a success story that has never been matched, but it has also a fairy tale quality and a consistently bubbling humor and joy arising out of the pleasure that Tom Thumb gave his audiences, always, in every country of the globe.
American boys and girls — and grownups too — will find this truly American biography both charming and absorbing.
Fritz Eichenberg adds to an important book with captivating drawings.
The frontispiece is based on a contemporary lithograph of Tom Thumb made at the time of his first London visit in 1843.
From the dust jacket
The Middle Moffat
By: Eleanor Estes
Illustrated by: Louis Slobodkin
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
The children will have to share this book with their parents—a proud privilege which as been theirs with every really first-rate book ever written for children from Alice in Wonderland all the way to Penrod. For none of us has achieved parenthood or aunt-or-uncle-hood without being a child first and this book reminds us of it. It aches with laughter, because its fun is the kind that happened to all of us. Children will see only the fun—the rest of us will be haunted a little by a nostalgic pathos that nudges our hearts as we laugh.
Jane was practically the middle Moffat, Sylvie and Joey having come ahead of her and Rufus after. Now, at the age of ten, she had a Best Friend and that withdrew her somewhat from the bosom of the family. But how happily she fitted into their exact midst when they acted The Three Bears, although on that occasion she misplaced her head for a while! Jane, being a child of inspiration, overcame even that difficulty.
The pictures by Louis Slobodkin should not be mentioned in a separate paragraph because they are part and parcel of the book, almost unbelievably inseparable from it, and like the book, generously running over with a deep and satisfying quality of amusement.
From the dust jacket
