We've talked about great children's literature before, but I thought I'd bring it up again.

The Newbery Medal Winners, 2007, were announced a few weeks ago. The members of the book groups I'm in are going to be talking about Newbery winners at our next meeting. I've asked them all to read this year's winner as well as one of the winners from when they were around 10 years old.

I'm wondering how many of you have read several of the book on this auspicious list and what you've thought of them.

I have read most of the winners, actually, back to at least 1950 or so. I took it on as a reading challenge when I was in grad school. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

When our children were young, we wondered how to find good books for them. Se we got the list of Newberry winners, and picked up as many as we could. We'd go to a huge used-book sale every year, armed with the Newberry list (marked to show what we already had), and look for them.

As a result, we have a near-complete collection of the Newberry winners up to that time. And since we had to know which were age-appropriate as our children grew, I've read most of them. (Maybe I'll make a list. By the way, here's a list of winners only, excluding the honorable mentions.)

CW, you really should read the 1936 Medal Winner, Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink.

I recall reading a bunch of these when I was younger, but I don't see too many on the list. I read Holes by Louis Sachar a few years ago, since he wrote a bunch of other books I enjoyed as a child. In school I read The Giver, Shiloh, Sarah, Plain and Tall, and possible one or two others, all the way back to Island of the Blue Dolphins and Johnny Tremain. I read A Wrinkle In Time on my own, when I was about 12, and Rabbit Hill around the same time. The latter was one of my favorite books as a child.

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CW, you really should read the 1936 Medal Winner, Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink.

I love Caddie Woodlawn! Excellent book!

I just counted - I've read 55 of the 85 winners. I might have read more, but reading the titles the stories don't come immediately to mind.

As Shu said, until about 2000, we've read them all, but I'll pick out a few of my favorites:

The Cat Who Went to Heaven
The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle
Caddie Woodlawn
Daniel Boone
Call It Courage
The Matchlock Gun
Little Town on the Prairie (an Honor Book; we have all of Laura Ingalls Wilder books, and my oldest daughter (in her 20s) was just checking on that recently.
Rabbit Hill
Strawberry Girl
Miss Hickory
The Twenty One Balloons
Old Yeller (Newberry Honor)
Rifles for Watie
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
Frog and Toad Together (Newberry Honor)
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
Bridge to Terabithia
A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-1832
Jacob Have I Loved
Sarah, Plain and Tall
Hatchet (Newberry Honor)
The Winter Room (Newberry Honor)
Number the Stars
Shiloh
The Giver
A Long Way from Chicago (Newberry Honor...of course I'd like that!)

...Just to name a few. I haven't read some of the real recent ones, unfortunately. Most of them are wonderful, though.

Yes, the Honor books are good to include if you're looking for great reads. Usually they are as good (or sometimes, IMHO, better) than the winners. The process for choosing the winners is really complex, and sometimes no one's favorite is the winner, but rather a compromise amongst the committee members.

I suppose partly because I have no children and partly because the iist is of American books, I had to go back to 1923 to find a book I'd read. That was The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting. I saw a few (very few) names of authors and titles I recognised, though.

As a fan and collector of children's books I was astonished at how few I've ever even heard of- a grand total of three, of which I've read one. Like arnie I can only assume that it's because the list is almost exclusively American and almost completely unheard of anywhere else.

The first one I know (but haven't read) is Charlotte's Web in 1953.

Then, still not read, we get back to 1938 and Pecos Bill.


Then, same book as arnie, I know and HAVE read Doctor Doolittle.

I'm also out of touch; I haven't read most of these. I've only read three: Lloyd Alexander's The Black Cauldron, which I still love, Charlotte's Web, and Bridge to Terabithia - I saw the trailer for the movie and it doesn't look anything like the book I remember.

Apart from Dr Dolittle (wonderful) I have heard only of Little House on the Prairie.

It's an American list and contains mostly American authors' works.

I suspect a UK list would be similarly skewed towards UK authors' titles.

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The first one I know (but haven't read) is Charlotte's Web in 1953.

That's one I recognised, too. Hasn't a film (movie) of the book just been released?

These are interesting responses to the Newbury list. My wife's graduate advisor was on the Newbury committee and had a lot of interesting stories to tell about why one book got the medal and another didn't (short answer: politics, zeitgeist). The list is strongly skewed towards American writers and "important" but not revolutionary books -- the kind you were assigned in Junior High English class. My wife's area of concentration was children's literature, so I'm familiar with a lot of these books although I've only read three of them, but I've never heard of half of them, and even fewer of the Honor books.

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Bridge to Terabithia - I saw the trailer for the movie and it doesn't look anything like the book I remember.

The movie of Mrs. Frisbie and the Rats of NIMH (remade as The Secret of NIMH) was almost diametrically opposite to the book. In the book, science and technology are the route to a better life and, ultimately, to independence. The movie's theme, however, is the triumph of mysticism over evil science. To me, that was a terrible perversion.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: shufitz,

I looked at the list of Carnegie Medal winners (a British award for children's literature) and only recognized three of the books on the list, but my wife tells me we own about thirty of them.

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Originally posted by neveu:
I looked at the list of Carnegie Medal winners (a British award for children's literature) and only recognized three of the books on the list, but my wife tells me we own about thirty of them.

Read Seven, Own Six, Recognised about six others.

We have all of these books in the middle school library where I work, but for the most part, they don't get checked out much. "The Giver" gets checked out regularly because it is required reading in 7th grade. "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" and "Number the Stars" get checked out too. But that's about it. If they gave awards based on what the kids are checking out and stealing from us, the award would go to the "Bluford series" of books and vampire books like the "Cirque du Freak" series by Darren Shan and "Twilight" & "New Moon" by Stephenie Meyer. We can not keep these books on the shelf.

LOL - I know what you mean, Sock. Other books in my own library that would win awards would be Junie B. Jones books, Captain Underpants and other series by Dav Pilkey, Cheetah Girls and That's So Raven books, and everything by Sharon Draper . . . but she has won awards, too. Still, I do think the Newberys tend to be very well-written (if often tragic) books.

I can't believe I forgot Charlotte's Web...one of my favorites. My kids also loved Peter Pan. We still use the phrase, "It's kind of a compliment, when you think about it."

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can only assume that it's because the list is almost exclusively American

Correct. One of the criteria is that the book is an original work (no translations), first edition, published in the US.

I never realized how divided the children's book publishing world must be.

In looking at the list for Carnegie Medal Winners and I've read 8 of them. There are many I've not heard of, even some where I know the author's works (or thought I did)! I've requested some of the titles from my library and will take a look. Does anyone know why no award was given in 1966?

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Correct. One of the criteria is that the book is an original work (no translations), first edition, published in the US.

So what's Dr Dolittle doing on the list?

quote: "One of the criteria is that the book is an original work (no translations), first edition, published in the US." So what's Dr Dolittle doing on the list?

"by 1912 Hugh Lofting ... returned to America, married Flora Small, and settled in New York City to begin a writing career." The War took him back to Europe, but it sounds like he was back in the US when it came time to publish his first book. (Edit: The ALA site lists the publisher as "Stokes," a New York house, but I can't verify that it was not earlier-published elsewhere.)

The current criteria, last revised 1987, require that the author be a US citizen or resident, and that "books originally published in other countries are not eligible." However, these requirements may not have been part of the original criteria, those at the time of Lofting's work; see here.

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I wouldn't consider Lofting (born in Maidenhead) to be an American any more than I would consider P G Wodehouse to be American (even though he spent probably half his life in the USA and eventually took US citizenship).

To my mind the country of birth should be the determinant.

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To my mind the country of birth should be the determinant.

Uh-oh. My sister is going to be surprised to learn that she is Japanese.

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To my mind the country of birth should be the determinant.

But in this case you are not making the rules.