Springfield-Greene County Library District Newbery Medal
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2024
Winner
The Eyes & the Impossible
Free dog Johannes' job is to observe everything that happens in his urban park and report back to the park's three bison elders, but changes are afoot, including more humans, a new building, a boatload of goats, and a shocking revelation that changes his view of the world.
Honor Books
- Eagle Drums by Nasu?graq Rainey Hopson
- Elf Dog & Owl Head by M. T Anderson Illustrated by Junyi Wu
- Mexikid : A Graphic Memoir by Pedro Martin Illustrated by Pedro Martin
- Simon Sort of Says by Erin Bow
- The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams by Daniel Nayeri Illustrated by Daniel Miyares
2023
Winner
Freewater
After fleeing the plantation where they were enslaved, siblings Ada and Homer discover the secret community of Freewater and work with freeborn Sanzi to protect their new home from the encroaching dangers of the outside world.
Honor Books
2022
Winner
The Last Cuentista
A girl named Petra Pena, wanted nothing more than to be a storyteller like her abuelita. But Petra's world is ending. Earth has been destroyed by a comet, and only a few hundred scientists and their children - among them Petra and her family - have been chosen to journey to a new planet. They are the ones who must carry on the human race. Hundreds of years later, Petra wakes to this new planet - and the discovery that she is the only person who remembers Earth. A sinister Collective has taken over the ship during its journey, bent on erasing the sins of humanity's past. They have systematically purged the memories of all aboard - or purged them altogether. Petra alone now carries the stories of our past, and with them, any hope for our future. Can she make them live again? --Publisher's description.
2021
Winner
When You Trap a Tiger
When Lily, her sister Sam, and their mother move in with her sick grandmother, Lily traps a tiger and makes a deal with him to heal Halmoni.
Honor Books
2020
Winner
New Kid
Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade. As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds--and not really fitting into either one.
2019
Winner
Merci Suarez Changes Gears
Merci Suárez knew that sixth grade would be different, but she had no idea just how different. For starters, Merci has never been like the other kids at her private school in Florida, because she and her older brother, Roli, are scholarship students. They don't have a big house or a fancy boat, and they have to do extra community service to make up for their free tuition. So when bossy Edna Santos sets her sights on the new boy who happens to be Merci's school-assigned Sunshine Buddy, Merci becomes the target of Edna's jealousy. Things aren't going well at home, either: Merci's grandfather and most trusted ally, Lolo, has been acting strangely lately -- forgetting important things, falling from his bike, and getting angry over nothing. No one in her family will tell Merci what's going on, so she's left to her own worries, while also feeling all on her own at school. ________ A Junior Library Guild selection.
Honor Books
2018
Winner
Hello, Universe
Virgil feels out of place in his crazy-about-sports family. Valencia is deaf, smart, and loves everything about nature. Kaori is a self-proclaimed psychic, whose little sister, Gen, is always following her around. And Chet wishes the weird kids would just stop being so different so that he can concentrate on basketball. They aren't friends. But when Chet pulls a prank that traps Virgil and his pet guinea pig at the bottom of a well, Kaori, Gen, and Valencia begin a quest to find the missing Virgil.
Honor Books
- Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by Derrick Barnes Illustrated by Gordon C. James
- Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
- Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson
2017
Winner
The Girl who Drank the Moon
A young girl is accidentally fed moonlight by the witch who raises her and develops extraordinary magical powers. She must use her magic to confront the evil that emerges.
2016
Winner
Last Stop on Market Street
A young boy, CJ, rides the bus across town with his grandmother and learns to appreciate the beauty in everyday things.
Honor Books
2015
Winner
The Crossover
Fourteen-year-old twin basketball stars Josh and Jordan wrestle with highs and lows on and off the court as their father ignores his declining health.
Honor Books
2014
Winner
Flora & Ulysses: the Illuminated Adventures
Rescuing a squirrel after an accident involving a vacuum cleaner, comic-reading cynic Flora Belle Buckman is astonished when the squirrel, Ulysses, demonstrates astonishing powers of strength and flight after being revived. Lexile 520
Honor Books
2013
Winner
The One and Only Ivan
When Ivan, a gorilla who has lived for years in a down-and-out circus-themed mall, meets Ruby, a baby elephant that has been added to the mall, he decides that he must find her a better life.
2012
Winner
Dead End in Norvelt
In the historic town of Norvelt, Pennsylvania, twelve-year-old Jack Gantos spends the summer of 1962 grounded for various offenses until he is assigned to help an elderly neighbor with a most unusual chore involving the newly dead, molten wax, twisted promises, Girl Scout cookies, underage driving, lessons from history, typewriting, and countless bloody noses.
Honor Books
2011
Winner
Moon over Manifest
Twelve-year-old Abilene Tucker is the daughter of a drifter who, in the summer of 1936, sends her to stay with an old friend in Manifest, Kansas, where he grew up, and where she hopes to find out some things about his past. Over the summer she pieces together his story. Having heard stories about Manifest, Abilene is disappointed to find that it's just a dried-up, worn-out old town. But her disappointment quickly turns to excitement when she discovers a hidden cigar box full of mementos, including some old letters that mention a spy known as the Rattler. These mysterious letters send Abilene and her new friends, Lettie and Ruthanne, on an honest-to-goodness spy hunt, even though they are warned to "Leave Well Enough Alone."
2010
Winner
When you reach me
As her mother prepares to be a contestant on the 1980s television game show, "The $20,000 Pyramid," a twelve-year-old New York City girl tries to make sense of a series of mysterious notes received from an anonymous source that seems to defy the laws of time and space.
2009
Winner
The Graveyard Book
After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.
2008
Winner
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! : voices from a medieval village
A collection of short one-person plays featuring characters, between ten and fifteen years old, who live in or near a thirteenth-century English manor.
Honor Books
2007
Winner
The Higher Power of Lucky
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.
Honor Books
2006
Winner
Criss Cross
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
Winner
Kira-Kira
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
Winner
The Tale of Despereaux
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
Winner
Crispin: The Cross of Lead
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. Lexile Level: 780
2002
Winner
A Single Shard
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.
Honor Books
2001
Winner
A Year Down Yonder
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.
Honor Books
2000
Winner
Bud, Not Buddy
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
Winner
Holes
As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.
Honor Books
1998
Winner
Out of the Dust
In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.
Honor Books
1997
Winner
The View From Saturday
Four students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who chooses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition.
Honor Books
1996
Winner
The Midwife's Apprentice
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
Winner
Walk Two Moons
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. Lexile Level: 770
Honor Books
1994
Winner
The Giver
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
Winner
Missing May
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
Winner
Shiloh
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
Winner
Maniac Magee
After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries.
Honor Books
1990
Winner
Number the Stars
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
Winner
Joyful Noise : Poems for Two Voices
A collection of poems describing the characteristics and activities of a variety of insects.
1988
Honor Books
1987
Winner
The Whipping Boy
A bratty prince and his whipping boy have many adventures when they inadvertently trade places after becoming involved with dangerous outlaws.
1986
Winner
Sarah, Plain and Tall
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.
Honor Books
1985
Winner
The Hero and the Crown
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.
Honor Books
1984
Winner
Dear Mr. Henshaw
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
Winner
Dicey's Song
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
Winner
A Visit to William Blake's Inn : Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers
A collection of poems describing the curious menagerie of guests who arrive at William Blake's inn.
1981
Winner
Jacob Have I Loved
Feeling deprived all her life of schooling, friends, mother, and even her name by her twin sister, Louise finally begins to find her identity.
Honor Books
1980
Winner
A Gathering of Days : A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-1832
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.
Honor Books
1979
Winner
The Westing Game
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.
Honor Books
1978
Winner
Bridge to Terabithia
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
Winner
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
A black family living in Mississippi during the Depression of the 1930s is faced with prejudice and discrimination which its children do not understand.
Honor Books
1976
Winner
The Grey King
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.
Honor Books
1975
Winner
M. C. Higgins, the Great
As a slag heap, the result of strip mining, creeps closer to his house in the Ohio hills, fifteen-year-old M.C. is torn between trying to get his family away and fighting for the home they love.
1974
Winner
The Slave Dancer
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.
Honor Books
1973
Winner
Julie of the Wolves
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.
Honor Books
1972
Winner
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
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
Winner
Summer of the Swans
A teen-age girl gains new insight into herself and her family when her mentally retarded brother gets lost.
1970
Winner
Sounder
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
Winner
The High King
Taran, Assistant Pig-keeper, and Prince Gwydion prepare for a fierce battle with Arawn-Death-Lord when he acquires the sword of Dyrnwyn, the most powerful weapon in the kingdom of Prydain.
1968
Winner
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Having run away with her younger brother to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, twelve-year-old Claudia strives to keep things in order in their new home and to become a changed person and a heroine to herself. Lexile Level: 700
1967
Winner
Up a Road Slowly
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
Winner
I, Juan de Pareja
The slave of the 17th century Spanish painter Velazquez becomes a painter in his own right.
Honor Books
1965
Winner
Shadow of a Bull
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.
Honor Books
1964
Winner
It's Like This, Cat
My father is always talking about how a dog can be very educational for a boy. This is one reason I got a cat. Dave Mitchell and his father yell at each other a lot, and whenever the fighting starts, Dave's mother gets an asthma attack. That's when Dave storms out of the house. Then Dave meets Tom, a strange boy who helps him rescue Cat. It isn't long before Cat introduces Dave to Mary, a wonderful girl from Coney Island. Slowly Dave comes to see the complexities in people's lives and to understand himself and his family a little better.
Honor Books
1963
Winner
A Wrinkle in Time
Meg Murry, her brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger.
1962
Winner
The Bronze Bow
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.
Honor Books
1961
Winner
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Records the courage and self-reliance of an Indian girl who lived alone for eighteen years on an isolated island off the California coast when her tribe emigrated and she was left behind.
1960
Winner
Onion John
His friendship with the town odd-jobs man, Onion John, causes a conflict between Andy and his father.
1959
Winner
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
In 1687 in Connecticut, Kit Tyler, feeling out of place in the Puritan household of her aunt, befriends an old woman considered a witch by the community and suddenly finds herself standing trial for witchcraft.
1958
Winner
Rifles for Watie
The story of Jeff Bussey, a farm boy living in 1861, who joins the Union army and goes on an important mission to discover how Stand Watie and his Confederate Cherokee Rebels are receiving repeating rifles from northern manufacturers.
Honor Books
1957
Winner
Miracles on Maple Hill
Marly and her family share many adventures when they move from the city to a farmhouse on Maple Hill.
1956
Winner
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
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
Winner
The Wheel on the School
Six students in a tiny Dutch sea town engage practically the whole population in an effort to attract storks to nest on the town's roofs again.
Honor Books
1954
Winner
...And Now Miguel
Depicts the story of Miguel who has a wish to go to the mountains in the summer with the shepherds and tend to the flocks of sheep.
1953
Winner
Secret of the Andes
An Indian boy who tends llamas in a hidden valley in Peru learns the traditions and secrets of his Inca ancestors.
1952
Winner
Ginger Pye
The disappearance of a new puppy named Ginger and the appearance of a mysterious man in a mustard yellow hat bring excitement into the lives of the Pye children.
1951
Winner
Amos Fortune, Free Man
John Newbery medal for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.
1950
Winner
The Door in the Wall
A crippled boy in fourteenth-century England proves his courage and earns recognition from the King.
1949
Winner
King of the Wind
Follows the adventures of an Arabian stallion brought to England to become one of the founding sires of the Thoroughbred breed, and the mute Arab stable boy who tended him with loyalty and devotion all his life.
1948
Winner
The Twenty-One Balloons
Relates the incredible adventures of Professor William Waterman Sherman who in 1883 sets off in a balloon across the Pacific, survives the volcanic eruption of Krakatoa, and is eventually picked up in the Atlantic.
1947
Winner
Miss Hickory
Relates the adventures of a country doll made of an apple-wood twig with a hickory nut for a head.
1946
Winner
Strawberry Girl
Set in a little-known backwoods region of Florida, Strawberry Girl is the first of the Lenski regional books and the winner of the Newbery award.
1945
Winner
Rabbit Hill
Delightful tale of what happens when the animals of Rabbit Hill learn that new folks are moving into the big, empty house.
1944
Winner
Johnny Tremain
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.
Honor Books
1943
Winner
Adam of the Road
The adventures of eleven-year-old Adam as he travels the open roads of thirteenth-century England searching for his missing father, a minstrel, and his stolen red spaniel, Nick.
Honor Books
1942
Winner
The Matchlock Gun
In 1756, during the French and Indian War in upper New York state, ten-year-old Edward is determined to protect his home and family with the ancient, and much too heavy, Spanish gun that his father had given him before leaving home to fight the enemy.
1941
Winner
Call It Courage
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.
Honor Books
1940
Winner
Daniel Boone
Tells the story of the life of the rugged frontiersman and pioneer leader who helped settle Kentucky.
1939
Winner
Thimble Summer
The adventures of Garnet and Citronella on a farm during the summer, including finding a silver thimble that brings good luck to their families.
1938
Winner
The White Stag
Retells the legendary story of the Huns' and Magyars' long migration from Asia to Europe where they hope to find a permanent home.
Honor Books
1937
Winner
Roller Skates
Liberated for a year from her parents' restrictions, ten-year-old Lucinda discovers true freedom in the care of her temporary guardians as she roller skates around the streets of turn-of-the-century New York.
1936
Winner
Caddie Woodlawn
The adventures of an eleven-year-old tomboy growing up on the Wisconsin frontier in the mid-nineteenth century.
1935
Winner
Dobry
Despite parental disapproval, a young Bulgarian boy dedicates himself to his dream of becoming a sculptor. Only his grandfather understands and encourages him.
1934
Winner
Invincible Louisa : The Story of the Author of Little Women
Presents the life of Louisa May Alcott, who was able through the success of her writings to achieve one thing that was very important to her--to be able to take care of all her family.
Honor Books
- ABC Bunny by Wanda Gag
- Apprentice of Florence by Ann Kyle
- Big Tree of Bunlahy : Stories of My Own Countryside by Padraic Colum
- Glory of the Seas by Agnes Hewes
- New Land by Sarah Schmidt
- Swords of Steel by Elsie Singmaster
- The Forgotten Daughter by Caroline Snedeker
- Winged Girl of Knossos by Erik Berry
1933
Winner
Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze
In the 1920's, 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
Winner
Waterless Mountain
Younger Brother, a Navaho Indian boy, feels a vocation to become a medicine man. He undergoes eight years of training in the ancient religion of his people and the practical knowledge of living on the desert land that is his tribe's homeland.
1931
Winner
The Cat Who Went to Heaven
This is the story of a little cat who came to the home of a poor Japanese artist and, by humility and devotion, brought him good fortune.
Honor Books
- Floating Island by Anne Parrish
- Garram the Hunter : A Boy of the Hill Tribes by Herbert Best
- Meggy MacIntosh by Elizabeth Janet Gray
- Mountains are Free by Julie Davis Adams
- Ood-Le-Uk the Wanderer by Alice Lide
- Queer Person by Ralph Hubbard
- Spice and the Devil's Cave by Agnes Hewes
- The Dark Star of Itza : The Story of a Pagan Princess by Alida Malkus
1930
Winner
Hitty, Her First Hundred Years
Hitty, a doll of real character carved from a block of mountain ash, tells a story of the different places and people that she encounters during her first hundred years.
1929
Winner
The Trumpeter of Krakow
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
Winner
Gay Neck, the Story of a Pigeon
The story of the training of a carrier pigeon and its service during the First World War, revealing the bird's courageous and spirited adventures over the housetops of an Indian village, in the Himalayan Mountains, and on the French battlefield.
Honor Books
1927
Winner
Smoky, the Cowhorse
The experiences of a mouse-colored horse from his birth in the wild, through his capture by humans and his work in the rodeo and on the range, to his eventual old age.
1926
1925
Winner
Tales from Silver Lands
Presents a series of stories about animals, magic, witches, giants, and other beings from Central and South America.
Honor Books
1924
Winner
The Dark Frigate
In seventeenth-century England, orphaned Philip Marsham, forced to flee London after a terrible accident, finds himself in an even more difficult situation when his ship is taken over by pirates and he is forced to become a member of their crew.
1923
Winner
The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle
When his colleague Long Arrow disappears, Dr. Dolittle sets off with his assistant, Tommy Stubbins, his dog, Jip, and Polynesia the parrot on an adventurous voyage over tropical seas to floating Spidermonkey Island.
1922
Winner
The Story of Mankind
Chronicles the history of man and civilization from primitive beginnings to the current day.
Winner
Paperboy
When an eleven-year-old boy takes over a friend's newspaper route in July, 1959, in Memphis, his debilitating stutter makes for a memorable month.