Other Mock Winners

Nina just posted about Kids and Mock Newbery Discussions.  A perfect lead-in for this post, where I’m going to provide as much information as I have found about winners and honor books from other Mock Newberys around the country.  The reason I see Nina’s post as a perfect lead-in is that I always wonder, when reading other results, what methods they use to arrive at their decisions.  How are the short lists selected?  How is the discussion led?  Who is participating?  And how is the winner chosen? 

This year it seems our results are quite different from most other Mock Newberys around the country, in spite of some similar short lists.  If any readers have participated in these other groups, I’d love a comment about how your Mock was run…just for the sake of interest and comparison.

Let’s get started.

***

As Nan Hoekstra pointed out in the comments to another post, "The mock newbery blog Anokaberry put 20 titles in the Big Bowl and called them the Anokaberries for 2008. Google Anokaberry to see that post."  Here that post is!  They did not select a winner or honor books, but the post lists the books that they selected.

***

The Austin Public Library discussed 10 titles at their first Mock Newbery.  These titles were:
Ain’t Nothing But a Man:  My Quest to Find the Real John Henry (Nelson)
Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things (Look)
Brooklyn Bridge (Hesse)
The Hunger Games (Collins)
Saavy (Law)
Smiles to Go (Spinelli)
The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West (Fleischman)
The Underneath (Appelt)
We are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball (Nelson)

Winner – The Hunger Games (Collins)
Honors – Brooklyn Bridge (Hesse) and The Trouble Begins at 8 (Fleischman)

With this group, you can see that most of their selected discussion titles were at least talked about in this blog at one point or another.  Some of them made it onto our shortlist and some didn’t.  Their winner and one of their honors did not. Their other honor did, but was not selected by our group for an honor. 

***

The Brooklyn Public Library Children’s Specialists met for their 2nd Annual Mock Newbery and they also had results quite different from our own.  They discussed these titles:

Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things (Look)
Chains (Anderson)
Diamond Willow (Frost)
The Graveyard Book (Gaiman)
A Thousand Never Evers (Burg)
The Underneath (Appelt)

Winner – The Underneath (Appelt)
Honors – Chains (Anderson) and The Graveyard Book (Gaiman)

I think it’s fair to say that our group loved The Graveyard Book – at least those that had read it.  After much deliberation, though, Nina and I did not include it on our shortlist because we do not believe it is eligible for the Newbery based on previous publication.  The Underneath and Chains were both on our short list and after lengthy discussion neither of them were honored by our group, while Alvin Ho was given an honor.

***

The Central Rappahannock Regional Library selected Mock Newbery winners with staff participants.  
Winner – Waiting for Normal (Connor)
Honors – Diamond Willow (Frost) and The Underneath (Appelt)

I am not sure which books were discussed with this group, but the Underneath was on our short list, and in spite of some serious lovers of the title, through our discussion we agreed to not give it an honor.

The Johnson County, KS Library held a discussion with librarians from several local systems.  

Winner – Keeping Score (Park)
Honors – The Underneath (Appelt) and Waiting for Normal (Connor)

Again we have The Underneath.  Many other groups seemed to have a different conclusion about this book as a distinguished piece of literature for children in comparison to others of this year.  It’ll be quite interesting to see if the real Newbery Committee agrees.

***

The Rhode Island 2009 Mock Newbery results are also in.

Winner – Keeping Score (Park)
Honors – The Hunger Games (Collins) and Waiting for Normal (Connor)

Would love to know which other titles were discussed, as none of these made it onto our short list.

***

The 2nd Annual SCKLS Mock Newbery was held in Wichita, KS.  For Newbery titles the group discussed:

(pardon the format, but with such a long list it was much easier to copy from their page.

Winner – The Graveyard Book (Gaiman)
Honors – The Willoughby’s (Lowry), Savvy (Law) and My One Hundred Adventures (Horvath)

Again, Gaiman was recognized as well as several titles we decided to not put on our shortlist and one that was on, but was not recognized as the winner or an honor by our group.

***

So, that’s what I have.  Please feel free to chime in with any information about these Mock Newbery discussions, or any others I might have missed.

And definitely STAY TUNED to find out the real Newbery Winner and Honor Books on Monday morning.  Nina and I head to Denver on Thursday for the ALA Midwinter Meeting.  Maybe we’ll see you there!  And we’ll blog as soon as possible after the press conference announcing the ALSC awards.

Filed under: Uncategorized