Newbery Suggestions: Leaders through June
June Suggestions are now closed, and at the almost-halfway-point, there’s still a wide variety of votes submitted so far by Heavy Medal readers. Ten books have five or more suggestions; Twenty-one have just a single vote so far. Of the 51 books receiving suggestions, eight show up on the list for the first time. These are noted in red. Check out the full list below and we’ll put out a call for more suggestions in early July!
| Title | Author | Total |
| Prairie Lotus | Park | 12 |
| Show Me a Sign | Lezotte | 10 |
| List of Things That Will Not Change | Stead | 9 |
| When You Trap a Tiger | Keller | 9 |
| From the Desk of Zoe Washington | Marks | 8 |
| King and the Dragonflies | Callender | 7 |
| Mañanaland | Ryan | 7 |
| Efrén Divided | Cisneros | 6 |
| Almost American Girl: A Memoir | Ha | 5 |
| Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh | Fleming | 5 |
| On the Horizon | Lowry | 4 |
| Snapdragon | Leyh | 4 |
| When Stars are Scattered | Jamieson | 4 |
| Black Brother, Black Brother | Rhodes | 3 |
| Chirp | Messner | 3 |
| Echo Mountain | Wolk | 3 |
| One and Only Bob | Applegate | 3 |
| Stand Up, Yumi Chung! | Kim | 3 |
| Wish in the Dark | Soontornvat | 3 |
| All the Days Past, All the Days to Come | Taylor | 2 |
| Any Day with You | Respicio | 2 |
| Black is a Rainbow Color | Joy | 2 |
| Dragon Hoops | Yang | 2 |
| Here in the Real World | Pennypacker | 2 |
| Home for Godesses and Dogs | Connor | 2 |
| Only Black Girls in Town | Colbert | 2 |
| Thief Knot | Milford | 2 |
| Village of Scoundrels | Preus | 2 |
| Ways to Make Sunshine | Watson | 2 |
| We Dream of Space | Kelly | 2 |
| Blackbird Girls | Blankman | 1 |
| Clean Getaway | Stone | 1 |
| Coo | Noel | 1 |
| Great Upending | Kephart | 1 |
| How to Make Friends with the Sea | Guerrero | 1 |
| How Women Won the Vote | Bartoletti | 1 |
| Kent State | Wiles | 1 |
| Leaving Lymon | Cline-Ransome | 1 |
| Many Feathered Thing | Gerlits | 1 |
| Nonsense! The Curious Story of Edward Gorey | Mortensen | 1 |
| One Last Shot | Anderson | 1 |
| Ordinary Day | Arnold | 1 |
| Prettiest | Young | 1 |
| Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe | Hernandez | 1 |
| Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You | Reynold & Kendi | 1 |
| Things Seen from Above | Pearsall | 1 |
| Things You Can’t Say | Bishop | 1 |
| Voice Named Aretha | Russell-Brown | 1 |
| Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom | Sachar | 1 |
| We are Water Protectors | Lindstrom | 1 |
| What Stars are Made of | Allen | 1 |
Filed under: Heavy Medal Mock, Process
About Steven Engelfried
Steven Engelfried was the Library Services Manager at the Wilsonville Public Library in Oregon until he retired in 2022 after 35 years as a full-time librarian. He served on the 2010 Newbery committee, chaired the 2013 Newbery Committee, and also served on the 2002 Caldecott committee. You can reach him at sengelfried@yahoo.com.
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Due to health concerns, I’m only doing audiobooks. Can’t find Show Me a Sign in that format. My colleague guesses it’s because the characters use sign language. Shouldn’t it be accessible to everyone?
I’m a seasoned spectator of Heavy Medal. This year feels more like 2019 than 2020.
It’s ungracious to the great Julie Morstad to crop her cover art. Cheers!
Thanks for catching the cover error, Debra. I hadn’t realized that the image got cropped. It’s fixed above, though it’s still the smaller thumbnail on the HM home page (will try to fix that later…)
A question about “leaders” – If there are books we particularly want to champion, should we be “voting” for them even if someone else already has? Is there any benefit to being a “leader” in the conversation at this point? I ask because I am not posting a title if I know it is on the list, but there are, of course, several that I would post if they weren’t there already. If I did post, that would lead to more “votes” in the tally. I’ve followed this conversation for years, but I can’t remember the details regarding this informal nomination process.
Hi Sara,
Good question. Yes, it’s fine to add your vote to a book that already has votes. But suggestions on Heavy Medal (and on the real Committee) don’t really carry any weight when it comes to selection. The Committee uses the process as a way for members to share what they’re reading through the course of the year. The totals can give some indication of books that have caught the attention of multiple readers, but often don’t line up at all with the eventual choices. One way they’re deceptive is that they clearly favor books published early in the year. Also, a book doesn’t have to be “distinguished” or “excellent” to make the Suggestion list. Just worth considering. When we get to “Nominations” in the fall, those are much more relevant to the actual Newbery decision. Committee members can only Nominate 7 titles and only nominated titles make it to the final discussion table. So the short answer (after this pretty long one) is that Suggestions are used as a reading list, but not as a real indicator of leading Newbery candidates.
Your question does make me reconsider the use of “leaders” in the titles of these posts, because it really is misleading…
Question: How early can someone add a title to the list? I read a lot of e-galleys and I would like to nominate titles before I forget.
Good question, Jennifer. We do ask folks to hold off on Suggesting until the book is actually published in print form. It means we don’t hear about some of the great books that aren’t out yet…but it also keeps us kind of on the same reading schedule. Suggestions happen the first Monday of each month, and if a book is due out in the next week or two after that, it’s fine to add it to the list. But for others…yes, it’s keep a list and save them, I’m afraid.