Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Newbery Award
On Monday the American Library Association had it’s Superbowl. They announced the 2022 Newbery award winners among many other awards) and proudly declared the best of the best published in 2021. Like any word nerd worth her salt, I was transfixed to my computer screen as the presentation of the award ceremony was streamed. The names announced are my celebrities, my rockstars, my “dream dinner party attendees”. Authors change the world one book at a time. These people, who already had made a major impact, were about to send shock waves of energy throughout the kidlit world, and I couldn’t wait to see who would be named.
Now, it is Wednesday of that same week. You are likely already familiar with the names and book covers of the 2002 winners, so I won’t use today’s post to broadcast them again. Okay, maybe I will, but just real quick! Congratulations Donna Barba Higuera, Rajani La Rocca, Darcie Little Badger and Andrea Wang!
Instead, I want to spend my time today sharing a bit of history and a few fun facts about the Newbery award to commemorate and celebrate its 100th anniversary. If you are an educator, book lover, librarian, writer or word nerd in any sense, I hope that you find these facts interesting, inspiring and insightful. I hope this post urges you to spend a few moments in gratitude for the power, joy and goodness that children’s authors add to our planet. I hope that this post motivates you to read. And if it’s been a while since you read a “kid book”, I’d encourage you to give one, perhaps from this list, a try. Despite the age of it’s target audience, there is nothing simplistic or dumbed down about the books that populate the kidlit world. What you will find if you choose to look between the covers of a book labeled MG or YA is raw honesty, focused energy and a whole lot of heart. You’ll find some d*mn good writing and awesome stories too. As Kim Zachman says in this article, “A good book is a good book for everyone.”
The History
If you’ve done the math, you’ll know that the Newbery Medal has been given since 1922. It is special for many reasons, one of which being that it was the first children's literary award in the world. It is named for John Newbery, an 18th century English publisher of books for children, and the medal was designed by Rene Paul Chambellan. Fifteen years later, Rene also designed the Caldecott Medal! (Let your students design their own medal with this activity!) The Story of Mankind by Hendrick Willem van Loon was the first ever winner of the Newbery Award. For a brief, but full history of the Newbery Award you can use in your classroom, click here: powerpoint/worksheet version with fill-in-the-blank notes sheet)
The Newbery Medal is awarded by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association (ALA). The winning authors and books are chosen by a committee of 15 members of the ALSC. The committee’s job is to nominate seven books published the preceding year that he or she felt were award worthy based on the award criteria. (Learn about those criteria in this classroom resource!)
A Few Random Facts
Robert Lawson is the only person who has won both a Newbery and a Caldecott. He won the Newbery in 1944 for Rabbit Hill and won the Caldecott Medal three years earlier for They Were Strong and Good.
Two years after his father, Sid Fleischman won the Newbery Award for The Whipping Boy, Paul Fleischman won the Newbery Award for Joyful Voices.
By the numbers: 4 poetry books have won the Newbery Award and 7 have been nonfiction; the rest have all been fiction, with historical fiction taking home the most medals.
There are several authors who have won the Newbery or Newbery Honor award multiple times! Check out this chart below! 6 of these listed authors have won the Newbery Medal twice including: Katherine Patterson, Lois Lowry, Kate DiCamillo, Elizabeth Spearhead George, E.L. Konigsburg and Joseph Krumsgold.
Robin McKinley, was the youngest person to ever win the Newbery Award. She won it in 1985 at the age of 33 for The Hero and the Crown.
While other heavily illustrated books had won a Newbery Honor Award, New Kid by Jerry Craft was the First Graphic Novel to Win ALA Newbery Medal.
On Heavy Medal, a Mock Newbery Blog, Emily Mroczek Bayci shared that Robert C. O’Brien, author of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh didn’t attend the Newbery banquet to get his award in person. Instead, he sent his editor, Jean Karl, to read the speech he had written. After he died it was revealed that Robert C. O’Brien was a pen name, not his real name. He kept this secret because for his full time job he wrote for National Geographic and it was stated in his contract that he was not allowed to publish with anyone else. “He used his mother’s maiden name so that he could write and publish children’s books secretly.” Woah! Scandalous!
Two thirds of the Newbery winners are women. Let’s think about that a minute. The Newbery award was introduced in 1922, just a few years after women won the right to vote. “Women truly weren’t acknowledged for a lot of their accomplishments. So, to have the most distinguished book for American literature for children to go two thirds to women, that’s awesome.” - via interview with Clermont Public Librarians Cara and Stacy.
A Little More
This isn’t a fact, but it is super fun. You can buy Newbery Merchandise celebrating the 100th anniversary of this award here! (I’m not an affiliate of this store, but am definitely a fan of word nerd attire!)
To see some fun categorization of the Newbery books, by genre, topic, page count, etc., check out this list created by the Madison Public Library.
For a super interesting look at how Newbery winners of the past are viewed and presented to children now, read this article from Sara L. Schwebel and Jocelyn Van Tuyl on Slate.com.
To close out today’s blog post, I want to offer up some classroom resources. I hope that with them, you can share the enthusiasm and spark created by the Newbery award with your young readers.
Now that you’ve read the full post (gold star!), test your Newbery-knowledge with this trivia quiz! Get the printable answer sheets to go with this quiz game here.
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