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Newbery Medal

Newbery Medal award

The Newberry Medal is awarded each year to the author of the previous year’s most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. Runners-up are called Newbery Honor Books.

The medal is named in honor of John Newbery. He was an eighteenth-century British publisher of juvenile books. He made it a priority to create books specifically for children.

The Newberry Medal and the Caldecott Medal are the most prestigious American Children’s Book awards.

No Award was given in 1923, 1924, or 1927. That is because no book was considered suitable.

Learn more: official Newberry Medal homepage.


Winners:

The Wheel on the School (1954)

Overcoming many obstacles, a group of children work together with their Dutch village to bring the storks back.

Author(s): Meindert De Jong
Illustrator(s): Maurice Sendak

Island of the Blue Dolphins (1960)

The story of an Indian girl named Karana who survives by herself for eighteen years on a deserted island off the California coast.

Author(s): Scott O’Dell
Illustrator(s): Evaline Ness

A Wrinkle in Time (1963)

When their scientist father disappears whilst on a secret mission, two children and a friend search for him through time and space by a process of "tessering."

Author(s): Madeleine L’Engle
Illustrator(s): Ellen Raskin

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (1976)

A clear-eyed look at the American south at the time of the Great Depression through the eyes of a young African American girl.

Author(s): Mildred D. Taylor
Illustrator(s): Jerry Pinkney

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