| The Newbery Medal was first offered in 1921 by Frederic G. Melcher as an incentive for better quality in children’s books. Named after John Newbery, the famous 18th century publisher and seller of children’s books, it is now donated annually by the Melcher family to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children published during the preceding year. Awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, the American Library Association. |
 2007
MedalistThe Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron Fearing that her legal guardian plans to abandon her to return to France, ten-year-old aspiring scientist Lucky Trimble determines to run away while also continuing to seek the Higher Power that will bring stability to her life. |
| 2006 Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins |
| Teenagers in a small town in the 1960s experience new thoughts and feelings, question their identities, connect, and disconnect as they search for the meaning of life and love. |
| 2005 - Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata |
| Chronicles the close friendship between two Japanese-American sisters growing up in rural Georgia during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the despair when one sister becomes terminally ill. |
| 2004 - The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo |
| The adventures of Desperaux Tilling, a small mouse of unusual talents, the princess that he loves, the servant girl who longs to be a princess, and a devious rat determined to bring them all to ruin. |
| 2003 - Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi |
| Falsely accused of theft and murder, an orphaned peasant boy in fourteenth-century England flees his village and meets a larger-than-life juggler who holds a dangerous secret. |
| 2002 - A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park |
| Tree-ear, a thirteen-year-old orphan in medieval Korea, lives under a bridge in a potters' village and longs to learn how to throw the delicate celadon ceramics himself. |
| 2001 - A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck |
| During the recession of 1937, fifteen-year-old Mary Alice is sent to live with her feisty, larger-than-life grandmother in rural Illinois and comes to a better understanding of this fearsome woman. |
| 2000 - Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis |
| Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father--the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids. |
| 1999 - Holes by Louis Sachar |
| The heir to his family’s curse of bad luck, Stanley Yelnats isconvicted of a crime he didn’t commit. He serves his sentenceat Camp Green Lake, a dry, flat wasteland where the warden assigns each inmate the task of digging one deep hole every day. Hole by hole, Stanley and his friend Zero, dig their destiny. |
| 1998 - Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse |
| 14-year-old Billie Jo relates how her mother dies after an accident with burning kerosene. Blaming both herself and her father, she is unable to express herself through her piano playing because of the burns that scar her hands. She leaves but quickly returns to her home “of dust” and she realizes how much a part of her it is. |
| 1997 - The View From Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg |
| A special bond develops among the four sixth graders who, along with their teacher/coach, Mrs. Olinski, comprise a surprisingly--in fact amazingly--successful Academic Bowl team. |
| 1996 - The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman |
| In medieval England, a nameless, homeless girl is taken in by a sharp-tempered midwife, and in spite of obstacles and hardship, eventually gains the three things she most wants: a full belly, a contented heart, and a place in this world. |
| 1995 - Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech |
| After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother’s route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left. |
| 1994 - The Giver by Lois Lowry |
| Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives. |
| 1993 - Missing May by Cynthia Rylant |
| After the death of the beloved aunt who has raised her, twelve-year-old Summer and her uncle Ob leave their West Virginia trailer in search of the strength to go on living. |
| 1992 - Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor |
| When he finds a lost beagle in the hills behind his West Virginia home, Marty tries to hide it from his family and the dog’s real owner, a mean-spirited man known to shoot deer out of season and to mistreat his dogs. |
| 1991 - Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli |
| After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee’s life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries. |
| 1990 - Number the Stars by Lois Lowry |
| In 1943, during the German occupation of Denmark, ten-year-old Annemarie learns how to be brave and courageous when she helps shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis. |
| 1989 - Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman |
| A collection of poems describing the characteristics and activities of a variety of insects. |
| 1988 - Lincoln: a Photobiography by Russell Freedman |
| Photographs and text trace the life of the Civil War President. |
| 1987 - Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman |
| A bratty prince and his whipping boy have many adventures when they inadvertently trade places after becoming involved with dangerous outlaws. |
| 1986 - Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan |
| When their father invites a mail-order bride to come live with them in their prairie home, Caleb and Anna are captivated by their new mother and hope that she will stay. |
| 1985 - The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley |
| Aerin, with the guidance of the wizard Luthe and the help of the blue sword, wins the birthright due her as the daughter of the Damarian king and a witchwoman of the mysterious, demon-haunted North. |
| 1984 - Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary |
| In his letters to his favorite author, ten-year-old Leigh reveals his problems in coping with his parents’ divorce, being the new boy in school, and generally finding his own place in the world. |
| 1983 - Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voigt |
| Now that the four abandoned Tillerman children are settled in with their grandmother, Dicey finds that their new beginnings require love, trust, humor, and courage. |
| 1982 - A Visit to William Blake’s Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers by Nancy Willard |
| A collection of poems describing the curious menagerie of guests who arrive at William Blake’s inn. |
| 1981 - Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson |
| Feeling deprived all her life of schooling, friends, mother, and even her name by her twin sister, Louise finally begins to find her identity. |
| 1980 - A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl’s Journal by Joan W. Blos |
| The journal of a 14-year-old girl, kept the last year she lived on the family farm, records daily events in her small New Hampshire town, her father’s remarriage, and the death of her best friend. |
| 1979 - The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin |
| The mysterious death of an eccentric millionaire brings together an unlikely assortment of heirs who must uncover the circumstances of his death before they can claim their inheritance. |
| 1978 - Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson |
| The life of a ten-year-old boy in rural Virginia expands when he becomes friends with a newcomer who subsequently meets an untimely death trying to reach their hideaway, Terabithia, during a storm. |
| 1977 - Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor |
| A black family living in the South during the 1930s are faced with prejudice and discrimination which their children don’t understand. |
| 1976 - The Grey King by Susan Cooper |
| In this fourth book of The Dark Is Rising sequence, Will Stanton, visiting in Wales, is swept into a desperate quest to find the golden harp and to awaken the ancient Sleepers. |
| 1975 - M.C. Higgins the Great by Virginia Hamilton |
| M.C. Higgins dreams of saving his family’s home from strip miners. It is not until two strangers enter his life that he learns the answer to his dreams lies in coming to terms with his family heritage and his own identity. |
| 1974 - The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox |
| Kidnapped by the crew of an Africa-bound ship, a thirteen-year-old boy discovers to his horror that he is on a slaver and his job is to play music for the exercise periods of the human cargo. |
| 1973 - Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George |
| While running away from home and an unwanted marriage, a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl becomes lost on the North Slope of Alaska and is befriended by a wolf pack. |
| 1972 - Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien |
| Having no one to help her with her problems, a widowed mouse visits the rats whose former imprisonment in a laboratory made them wise and long lived. |
| 1971 - The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Cromer Byars |
| A teen-age girl gains new insight into herself and her family when her mentally retarded brother gets lost. |
| 1970 - Sounder by William Howard Armstrong |
| Angry and humiliated when his sharecropper father is jailed for stealing food for his family, a young black boy grows in courage and understanding by learning to read and with the help of the devoted dog Sounder. |
| 1969 - The High King by Lloyd Alexander |
| The final chapter in the Prydain Chronicles (The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, and Taran Wanderer) finds Taran fighting the final battle with the forces of evil. |
| 1968 - From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg |
| A young girl runs away with her brother to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. |
| 1967 - Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt |
| After her mother’s death, Julie goes to live with Aunt Cordelia, a spinster schoolteacher, where she experiences many emotions and changes as she grows from seven to eighteen. |
| 1966 - I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton De Trevino |
| Novel based on the true story of the slave, Juan de Pareja, who was willed to Velazquez and whose relationship with the great Spanish painter evolved into one of friendship and equality. |
| 1965 - Shadow of a Bull by Maia Wojciechowska |
| Manolo Olivar has to make a decision: to follow in his famous father’s shadow and become a bullfighter, or to follow his heart and become a doctor. |
| 1964 - It’s Like This, Cat by Emily Cheney Neville |
| the story of a fourteen-year-old New York boy and his relationships with a stray tomcat, an eccentric old woman, a troubled older boy, the first girl with whom he has been friends, and his father. |
| 1963 - A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle |
| Meg Murray and her friends become involved with unearthly strangers and a search for Meg’'s father, who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government. |
| 1962 - The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare |
| When the Romans brutally kill Daniel bar Jamin’s father, the young Palestinian searches for a leader to drive them out, but comes to realize that love may be a more powerful weapon than hate. |
| 1961 - Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell |
| Left alone on a beautiful but isolated island off the coast of California, a young Indian girl spends eighteen years, not only merely surviving through her enormous courage and self-reliance, but also finding a measure of happiness in her solitary life. |
| 1960 - Onion John by Joseph Krumgold |
| His friendship with the town odd-jobs man, Onion John, causes a conflict between Andy and his father. |
| 1959 - The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare |
| Born in the Caribbean islands, Kit finds life in the Connecticut colony of her relatives to be extremely bleak and lonely. When her only friendship is discovered, she finds herself accused of witchcraft. |
| 1958 - Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith |
| A young farm boy joins the Union Army during the Civil War and becomes a scout in the western campaigns in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. |
| 1957 - Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Eggerton Sorensen |
| Marly and her family share many adventures when they move from the city to a farmhouse on Maple Hill. |
| 1956 - Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham |
| A fictionalized biography of the mathematician and astronomer who realized his childhood desire to become a ship’s captain and authored The American Practical Navigator. |
| 1955 - The Wheel on the School by Meindert De Jong |
| The search by the schoolchildren of a small fishing village in Holland for a wheel to put on the roof of their school so that storks will nest there and bring good luck to the town. |
| 1954 - ...And Now Miguel by Joseph Krumgold |
| Miguel, a New Mexican sheepherder, tells of his great longing to accompany the sheep to summer pasture, and to be considered a man. |
| 1953 - Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark |
| An Indian boy who tends llamas in a hidden valley in Peru learns the traditions and secrets of his Inca ancestors. |
| 1952 - Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes |
| When the Pye family’s puppy, Ginger, disapears on Thanksgiving Day, the children are convinced that he has been adbucted by a stranger in a yellow hat. |
| 1951 - Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates |
| The life of the eighteenth-century African prince who, after being captured by slave traders, was brought to Massachusetts where he was a slave until he was able to buy his freedom at the age of sixty. |
| 1950 - The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli |
| A crippled boy in medieval times learns his own strength when he saves the castle and discovers there is more than one way to serve his king. |
| 1949 - King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry |
| Sham and the stable boy Agba travel from Morocco to France to England where, at last, Sham’s majesty is recognized and he becomes the “Godolphin Arabian” ancestor of the most superior Thoroughbred horses. |
| 1948 - The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois |
| The whole world is amazed when Professor William Waterman Sherman is found in the Atlantic Ocean in the wreckage of 20 balloons, when he began his journey over the Pacific Ocean in a single balloon. |
| 1947 - Miss Hickory by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey |
| Relates the adventures of a country doll made of an apple-wood twig with a hickory nut for a head. |
| 1946 - Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski |
| Portrays a feud between two families in the Florida backwoods in the 1900s. |
| 1945 - Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson |
| Delightful tale of what happens when the animals of Rabbit Hill learn that new folks are moving into the big, empty house. |
| 1944 - Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes |
| After injuring his hand, a silversmith’s apprentice in Boston becomes a messenger for the Sons of Liberty in the days before the American Revolution. |
| 1943 - Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray |
| In thirteenth-century England an eleven-year-old boy roams the countryside as he searches for his father and his stolen dog. |
| 1942 - The Matchlock Gun by Walter Dumaux Edmonds |
| 1941 - Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry |
| Based on a Polynesian legend, this is the story of a youth who overcomes his fear of the sea and proves his courage to himself and his tribe. |
| 1940 - Daniel Boone by James Henry Daugherty |
| 1939 - Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright |
| 1938 - The White Stag by Kate Seredy |
| Retells the legendary story of the Huns and Magyars’ long migration from Asia to Europe where they hope to find a permanent home. |
| 1937 - Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer |
| 1936 - Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink |
| The adventures of an eleven-year-old tomboy growing up on the Wisconsin frontier in the mid-nineteenth century. |
| 1935 - Dobry by Monica Shannon |
| 1934 - Invincible Louisa; The Story of the Author of Little Women by Cornelia Lynde Meigs |
| The life story of Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women. |
| 1933 - Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze by Elizabeth (Foreman) Lewis |
| In the 1920s a Chinese youth from the country comes to Chungking with his mother where the bustling city offers adventure and his apprenticeship to a coppersmith brings good fortune. |
| 1932 - Waterless Mountain by Laura (Adams) Armer |
| 1931 - The Cat Who Went To Heaven by Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth |
| 1930 - Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Lyman Field |
| 1929 - The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric Philbrook Kelly |
| A Polish family in the Middle Ages guards a great secret treasure and a boy’s memory of an earlier trumpeter of Krakow makes it possible for him to save his father. |
| 1928 - Gay-Neck by Dhan Gopal Mukerji |
| 1927 - Smoky, The Cowhorse by James Will |
| The experiences of a mouse-colored horse from his birth on the range, through his capture by humans and his work in the rodeo and on the range, to his eventual old age. |
| 1926 - Shen of the Sea by Arthur Bowie Chrisman |
| Sixteen original stories reflecting the spirit of Chinese life and thought. |
| 1925 - Tales From Silver Lands by Charles Joseph Finger |
| 1924 - The Dark Frigate by Charles Boardman Hawes |
| The dark frigate; wherein is told the story of Philip Marsham who lived in the time of King Charles and was bred a sailor but came home to England after many hazards by sea and land and fought for the king at Newbury and lost a great inheritance and departed for Barbados in the same ship, by curious chance, in which he had long before adventured with the pirates. |
| 1923 - The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting |
| Presents the story of the good doctor who learned the language of animals and made adventurous voyages. |
| 1922 - The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem Van Loon |