2019 Heavy Medal: Suggestions to Date – March to August
Here it is, our final cumulative reader suggestion list before we start up our book discussion in early September. More than forty (40) readers have contributed to the list. Thank you so much!
Plenty of titles to read in preparation for us and Heavy Medal readers. Please continue to recommend worthy titles for us to examine — the fall season will bring us many many more books. Happy Reading and considering the Newbery Terms & Criteria!
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1 Suggestion
- Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle, The by Christina Uss
- All the Animals Where I Live by Philip Stead
- Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi
- Astonishing Color of After, The by Emily X.R. Pan
- Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough
- Burning Maze, The by Rick Riordan
by Christina Uss - Can I Touch Your Hair?: Poems of Race, Mistakes, and
- Friendship by Irene Latham and Charles Waters
- Cardboard Kingdom, The by Chad Sell
- Echo’s Sister by Paul Mosier
- Escape from Aleppo by N.H. Senzai
- Finding Langston by Lesa Cline-Ransome
- Give Me Some Truth by Eric Gansworth
- Good Dog by Dan Gemeinhart
- Hyena Scientist, The by Sy Montgomery
- In the Past by David Elliott
- Islandborn by Junot Diaz
- Jigsaw Jungle, The by Kristin Levine
- Last, The by Katherine Applegate
- Like Vanessa / Tami Charles
- Love by Matt de la Pena
- Love, Penelope by Joanne Rocklin
- Mabel and Sam at Home by Linda Urban
- Made for Each Other: Why Dogs and People Are Perfect
- Partners by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent
- Me, Frida, and the Secret of the Peacock Ring by Angela Cervantes
- Merci Suarez Changes Gears by Meg Medina
- One Thousand Beginnings and Endings
- Ostrich and Other Lost Things, The by Beth Hautala
- Out of Left Field by Ellen Klages
- Poet X, The by Elizabeth Acevedo
- Problematic Paradox, A by Eliot Sappingfield
- Rosetown by Cynthia Rylant
- Serpent Secret, The by Sayantani DasGupta
- Sky Full of Stars, A by Linda Williams Jackson
- Snow Lane by Josie Angelini
- Spooked by Gail Jarrow
- Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik, The by David Arnold
- Sunny by Jason Reynolds
- They Lost Their Heads by Carlyn Beccia
- Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
- Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles
- United States V. Jackie Robinson, The by Sudipta Barhan-Quallen
- Where the Watermelons Grow by Cindy Baldwin
- Wild Robot Escapes, The by Peter Brown
- Winterhouse by Ben Guterson
2 Suggestions
- Belles by Dhonielle Clayton
- Breakout by Kate Messner
- Chasing King’s Killer by James L. Swanson
- Girl Who Drew Butterflies by Joyce Sidman
- Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson
- Heart and Mind of Frances Pauley, The by April Stevens
- Miscalculations of Lightning Girl, The / Stacey McAnulty
- Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman
- Voices in the Air by Naomi Shihab Nye
3 Suggestions
- Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed
- Checked by Cynthia Kadohata
- Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
- Granted by John David Anderson
- Hurricane Child by Kheryn Callender
- Mad Wolf’s Daughter by Diane Magras
- Martin Rising: Requiem for a King by Andrea Davis Pinkney
- Peter & Ernesto: A Tale of Two Sloths by Graham Annable
- Prince and the Dressmaker, The by Jen Wang
- Stitch in Time, A by Daphne Kalmar
- They Say Blue by Jillian Tamaki
4 Suggestions
- Be Prepared by Vera Brosgal
- Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World by Ashley Herring Blake
- Just Like Jackie by Lindsey Stoddard
- Penderwicks at Last, The by Jeanne Birdsall
- You Go First by Erin Entrada Kelly
5 Suggestions
- Boots on the Ground: America’s War in Vietname by Elizabeth Partridge
- Hope in the Holler by Lisa Lewis Tyre
- Rebound by Kwame Alexander
6 Suggestions
- Night Diary, The by Veera Hiranandani
- Parker Inheritance, The by Varian Johnson
- Truth as Told by Mason Buttle by Leslie Connor
7 Suggestions
- Bob by Wendy Maas and Rebecca Stead
- Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes
8 Suggestions
- Book of Boy, The by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
- Front Desk By Kelly Yang
- Journey of Little Charlie, The by Christopher Paul Curtis
Filed under: Process
About Roxanne Hsu Feldman
Roxanne Hsu Feldman is the Middle School (4th to 8th grade) Librarian at the Dalton School in New York City. She served on the 2002 and 2013 Newbery Committees. Roxanne was also a member of 2008-2009 Notable Books for Children, 2015 Best Fiction for Young Adults, and the 2017 Odyssey Award Committees. In 2016 Roxanne was one of the three judges for the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards. You can reach her at at roxannefeldman@gmail.com.
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Here are a few titles I recommend for 2019 Heavy Medal suggestions:
The Parker Inheritance
The Journey of Little Charlie
The Hazel Wood
Martin Rising
The Prince and the Dressmaker
Just a head’s up that Martin Rising is on here twice (once under titles with 3 suggestions, and once under titles with one).
I did notice it and fixed it on the internal spreadsheet — but forgot to update the post. Thanks for the heads up.
I’ll add Hope Larson’s All Summer Long.
I LOVE Drum Roll, Please by Lisa Jenn Bigelow.
The story is solid and sweet, the original songs by the characters are wonderfully well-written.
Best LGBT Middle-Grade crush story I’ve read so far (like ever, I mean) and that’s saying a lot since Star Crossed and Ivy Aberdeen were also great!
And like First Rule of Punk, it inspired a great new Spotify playlist!
Forgot to mention, I think the camp’s clever music puns help push it over into the Newbery Worthy column as well. Really!
I’ve been blissfully re-reading old loves this summer and just realized I needed make my list for my students. Thanks for this.
I’ll add a suggestion for Snow Lane by Josie Angelini.
I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on Secret Sisters of the Salty Sea by Lynne Rae Perkins.
I found it overly patronizing, but I was listening to the audio and it could have been the reader. I stopped three quarters of the way in.
Would love to see STEP UP TO THE PLATE, MARIA SINGH, by Uma Krishnaswami. It’s a great look at a little-known moment in civil rights history, and how the players stood up to injustice. Wonderful characters, well-plotted, with Krishnaswami’s distinctive voice.
And, a new book, just getting ready to launch–JOURNEY OF THE PALE BEAR, by Susan K. Fletcher, based on a true story, it’s adventure on the high seas, but more importantly a look at what freedom, all mixed in with love, means, especially to those with no power.