< 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!
Sounder
By: William H. Armstrong
Medal Winner
NOT REVIEWED
Sounder, the great coon dog, has the neck and shoulders of a bulldog and the melodious bay of a hound. When he trees a coon, his voice rolls through the moonlit night and across the flatlands, louder than any dog's in the whole countryside.
But Sounder cannot save his master—the poor black sharecropper driven to steal for his hungry wife and children. Sounder cannot save him from the sheriff's pose, nor can he save him from fate.
For fate pursues them both, master and coon dog, mauling each of them in its cruel, impersonal jaws while the boy who loves the two of them is forced to bear his sorrow like a man, though he is still a child.
The power of William H. Armstrong's rose and of James Barkley's illustrations quite simply speaks for itself. And though the story burns with indignation, it climbs to moments of nobility and resignation that return, in memory, like a final benediction or the closing of a song.
From the dust jacket
Journey Outside
By: Mary Q. Steele
Illustrated by: Rocco Negri
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
They were headed for the Better Place, Grandfather said. But he could remember nothing about it except the words "green" and "day," and Dilar suspected that, like the willimars in the black river, these strange words were only something Grandfather imagined. He even suspected that they were headed nowhere, simply following the dark underground river blindly, going in circles. And so one night, on impulse, he leaped onto a shelf of rock and watched the flotilla of the Raft People disappear into the darkness.
If he was right, Dilar reasoned, the rafts would soon come again, but he had reckoned without the rats. They came at him in hordes, their long yellow teeth making chattering noises, their eyes blazing fiercely in their narrow heads, and in terror and desperation he flung himself up a tall, narrow crevice, climbing frantically, until suddenly he found himself in a different world, a world so beautiful and strange he could only suppose he had died — a world of day, and sun, and trees, and sky.
Was this the Better Place? Dilar thought it might be, although the People Against the Tigers, who rescued him, certainly were not wise enough to answer his questions. In fact, they made it clear that it was bad manners to ask questions at all. But Dilar, lost from his own people, had to know, and so he set off again into the high mountains of snow and cold, and perils he could never have foreseen.
Fast-paced, filled with action and excitement, this is a book that, once begun, cannot be put down. But it is much more than merely adventure; it is also a wholly contemporary story of a boy's search for real answers in a bewildering and strange world that is often as terrifying as it is beautiful. Rocco Negri's stunning woodcuts perfectly complement the mood and mystery of the book.
From the dust jacket
The Many Ways of Seeing: An Introduction to the Pleasures of Art
By: Janey Gaylord Moore
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
In this beautiful book, an artist who has lived with and enjoyed art for many years discusses with great perception and clarity the ways of viewing great paintings and other works of art, both in and out of museums. Line, form, color, and texture are lucidly explained, and the reader is encouraged to try many fascinating techniques for himself— making prints and collages, pen-and-ink drawing, sculpture, photography, painting— as well as to explore art in nature and in the world around him.
With over eighty black-and-white illustrations and thirty-two pages of superb color reproductions of great paintings from Giotto to Picasso, as well as student photographs and drawings, this is a book to be treasured by the beginning and experienced artist, the student of art history, the amateur collector, and anyone who finds joy in the world of art.
From the dust jacket
Our Eddie
By: Sulamith Ish-Kishor
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
The children of the poor and troubled
rarely do come to full growth;
like forced fruit, they blossom too early
and wither before they ripen.
Of these,
For these,
To these,
Whatever their age,
country, color, or creed,
This story,
By one of these.
Sulamith Ish-Kishor
This is a novel about an English-Jewish family who emigrates from London to New York during the early part of the twentieth century. It is the story of the Raphel family—Mama, Papa, Lilie, Sybil, Eddie and Thad, but in many ways it could be any family. It is the story, too of Hal Kent, an American boy who is their friend. And it is the story of conflict within the family which focuses on Eddie, the eldest son, and his relationship with a severe, egotistic, insensitive father, absorbed in his own problems—told with realism, poignancy and honesty. But, underlying the sibling rivalries there is fond, family attachment.
A realistic work is always believed to be autobiographical, and of course it always is, in part; the characters, to have been observed, must have entered the author's experience. However, none of the characters in this book is a representation of any particular person.
12 Up
From the dust jacket
