Here is the link about the year in the life of a Newbery Award Selection Committee member, and how they go about choosing the Newbery Medal and Honors: If it isn't, it can't even be considered for the award. "A book MUST be written by a United States citizen or resident, and must also be published first or simultaneously released in the US in English during the preceding year". Lucky me, as I found an article actually written by one of the Newbery Award Selection Committee members talking about her year as a committee member! It was really interesting! I'll include that article down below if you'd also like to learn more about the selection process and about what a Newbery Award Selection Committee member's year entails.įirst, there are some requirements to even be considered as a potential Newbery Medal/Honor book. The Newbery Medal Committee is very secretive about which books they are even considering for the Newbery (and all the other book awards announced on the same day), so while I tried to look up the books they were considering this year, there was NOTHING out before the 22nd.įor years I had no clue how they even chose the Newbery Medal, so last year I went and looked up to see if I could find an article that talked about it. It was officially announced as the winner on January 22nd of this year. This year's Newbery Medal is called The Eyes and the Impossible by Dave Eggers, and it is the 103rd Newbery Medal Winner. The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera.Īnother Newbery Medal milestone is the 2020 Newbery Medal winner! The 2020 winner was New Kid by Jerry Craft, and it was the FIRST EVER graphic novel to win the medal!! This is a HUGE accomplishment! There had been a few that had been honors before, but never a medal.
The Newbery Medal officially turned 100 in 2022 and that year's awarded book was They were also known as runners-up until 1971, and in my head that's what I still think of them as. There have been as few as 0 some years, to as many as 8, but now they only award up to 5 Newbery Honor books each year. The honors are awarded to the other leading contenders of the medal. This book has since been updated several times - first by Van Loon himself in both 19, then by his son several times after Van Loon's death in 1944, and the last time was in 2014 to cover the 2010s.Īlmost every year they have also named Newbery Honor books. The very first Newbery Medal was awarded in 1922 to The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon. It is given out by the ALSC (Association for Library Service to Children) a division of the ALA (American Library Association). The Newbery Medal is awarded to a new book annually for " the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children". He was considered "The Father of Children's Literature" as he was the one "who first made children's literature a sustainable and profitable part of the literary market". The Newbery Medal is named after John Newbery who was an English publisher of books in the 1700s. As of now I have officially read 74 of them.Īs you can probably tell from the title, I have finally decided to do the long awaited and promised post about the Newbery Medal, but rather than having it ONLY be about which ones I have read, and my favorites - I thought I would also make it a deep dive into the history of the Newbery Medal, and a bit about how they choose the medals. If you haven't heard/read, or can't recall why I refer to it so often, it is because I am trying to read every Newbery Medal winner. Many of you have probably heard me speak of the Newbery Medal in conversation several times, or saw it mentioned somewhere in the blog.