< 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!
The High King
By: Lloyd Alexander
Medal Winner
NOT REVIEWED
In this magnificent finale to the chronicles of Prydain, the whole land is the stage for the ultimate clash between the forces of good and evil which determines the fate of Prydain and of Taran, the Assistant Pig-Keeper who wanted to be a hero.
The last and greatest quest of Taran and his companions begins when the sword Drnwyn, the most powerful weapon in the kingdom, falls into the hands of Arawn Death-Lord, threatening Prydain with annihilation. Taran and Prince Gwydion raise an army to march against Arawn's terrible cohorts, human and inhuman, in a decisive struggle which may be their last. After a winter march filled with danger, the challenge of battle and the tragedy of defeat, love and sorrow, Taran and his army finally arrive at the very portal of Annuvin, Arawn's stronghold and, ultimately, to a decision for Taran that is the most crucial of his life.
A story of great scope and profundity, in the highest tradition of heroic fantasy, The High King fittingly concludes the Prydain epic, called by School Library Journal "the strongest fantasy series being created for children in our time."
From the dust jacket
To Be a Slave
By: Julius Lester
Illustrated by: Tom Feelings
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
"To be a slave. To be owned by another person, as a car, house, or table is owned. To live as a piece of property that could be sold, a child sold from its mother, a wife from her husband. To be considered not human, but a 'thing' the plowed the fields, cut the wood, cooked the food, nursed another's children, a 'thing' whose sole function was determined by the one who owned you."
This book is about how it felt.
All the aspects of slavery in America are described in vivid and often painful detail by black men and women who had themselves been slaves. Many were illiterate. "They had no formal education; but they had the education of day-to-day living, of observing people and nature, for sometimes their lives depended on such knowledge."
The major portion of the text has been constructed from the memories of ex-slaves—written down both before and after the Civil War. These are set as quotations within Julius Lester's clear and forceful commentary on the history of black Americans from the time of their abduction from Africa, through their experiences on board ship, the auction block, their labour on the plantations their futile attempts at resistance. The book culminates with the Civil War and Emancipation—but the victorious North failed to ensure equality between black and white, and the Ku Klux Klan and segregation inevitably followed. The emotions of the people who lived through these events are timeless.
From the dust jacket of the 1970 Longman Young Books (UK) edition
When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw & Other Stories
By: Isaac Bashevis Singer
Illustrated by: Margot Zemach
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
Like the marketplace storyteller of centuries past, Isaac Bashevis Singer again and again comes up with an unexpected delight for his audience. This collection of eight stories—some inspired by traditional Jewish tales—ranges from devilish comedy to delicate fantasy to parable to a tale of witchery and demons. The hilarious trickery of "Shrewd Todie and Lyzer the Miser” is followed by the tenderness of "Menaseh’s Dream,” which is matched by the title story’s satisfying high-jinks.
"Singer's tales are no more for Jewish children than Andersen's fairy tales are for Danish children. They have the sweep, the direct voice-to-ear simplicity, the easy familiarity which make all folk literature universal," writes the Chicago Tribune. A demonstration of the justice of this comment is provided by When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw and Other Stories.
From the dust jacket
