Final Nominations: 52 titles to consider for the 2021 Newbery Medal
Our final round of nominations is closed! Heavy Medal readers nominated up to seven titles each over the past few months, resulting in a list full of excellent children’s books published in 2020. The chart below shows the titles and the number of votes each received. Titles in red were nominated for the first time during this December round.
This list will help to determine our Heavy Medal Book List (HMBL) This is the list of 12-15 titles that our Heavy Medal Award Committee (HMAC) will discuss and vote upon, eventually selecting our Mock Newbery winner. Books with a asterisk are the ones that have already been placed on that HMBL.
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Details about the HMAC are coming next week. We’ll also finalize the HMBL. And we should have more details about the live Zoom discussion that will be a part of this year’s Mock Newbery process.
14 books received 5 or more nominations and those (plus one with 3 that’s already on the list) would make a fine discussion list. It’s not the most diverse in terms of format, though. It lacks a few types of book that I’d like to see included, including:
- at least one picture book
- at least one nonfiction book (we do have two memoirs and one mostly-true memoir)
- a fictional graphic novel
I’m curious about what others think. Should we include those to balance the list? Or go more by the votes? I’m leaning towards adding the most obvious choices to get to 10 or 11, and then doing a poll of HMAC members for the final additions once that committee is formed, but haven’t decided for sure. Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments below…
| Title | Author | Total |
| Echo Mountain * | Wolk | 15 |
| Fighting Words * | Bradley | 11 |
| When You Trap a Tiger | Keller | 11 |
| The List of Things That Will Not Change * | Stead | 9 |
| When Stars are Scattered * | Jamieson | 9 |
| Show Me a Sign * | Lezotte | 8 |
| We Dream of Space | Kelly | 7 |
| Blackbird Girls | Blankman | 6 |
| Game of Fox and Squirrels | Reese | 6 |
| Prairie Lotus | Park | 6 |
| Chance | Shulevitz | 5 |
| King and the Dragonflies | Callender | 5 |
| Skunk and Badger | Timberlake | 5 |
| A Wish in the Dark | Soontornvat | 5 |
| Becoming Muhammed Ali | Alexander | 4 |
| Leaving Lymon | Cline-Ransome | 4 |
| Mañanaland | Ryan | 4 |
| Everything Sad is Untrue * | Nayeri | 3 |
| From the Desk of Zoe Washington | Marks | 3 |
| The Summer We Found the Baby | Hest | 3 |
| Before the Ever After | Woodson | 2 |
| A Ceiling Made of Eggshells | Levine | 2 |
| Kent State | Wiles | 2 |
| A Many Feathered Thing | Gerlits | 2 |
| Overground Railroad | Cline-Ransome | 2 |
| The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh | Fleming | 2 |
| Snapdragon | Leyh | 2 |
| Stamped | Reynolds | 2 |
| Ways to Make Sunshine | Watson | 2 |
| Who Gives a Poop | Montgomery | 2 |
| All Thirteen | Soontornvat | 1 |
| An Almost American Girl: A Memoir | Ha | 1 |
| Black Brother, Black Brother | Rhodes | 1 |
| Chirp | Messner | 1 |
| Clap When You Land | Acevedo | 1 |
| Class Act | Craft | 1 |
| Clean Getaway | Stone | 1 |
| Dancing at the Pity Party | Feder | 1 |
| Dragon Hoops | Yang | 1 |
| Efrén Divided | Cisneros | 1 |
| Here in the Real World | Pennypacker | 1 |
| I Am Every Good Thing | Barnes | 1 |
| Land of the Cranes | Salazar | 1 |
| On the Horizon | Lowry | 1 |
| A Place at the Table | Faruqi | 1 |
| Princess in Black and the Giant Problem | Hale | 1 |
| Return of the Thief | Turner | 1 |
| Strongman | Davis | 1 |
| Three Keys | Yang | 1 |
| Twins | Johnson | 1 |
| Village of Scoundrels | Preus | 1 |
| The Way Back | Savit | 1 |
Filed under: Book Discussion, Heavy Medal Mock, Nominations, 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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I support leaning towards adding the most obvious choices to get to ten or eleven and then doing a poll. It makes the most sense.
Steven, thanks for doing all this work!
In theory, I support it too, but unfortunately the actual list doesn’t give a clean dividing line — the difference between 6 and 5 feels a bit artificial, especially given the early vs late book bias. CHANCE and SKUNK AND BADGER climbed fast this month, but are at 5.
Maybe get to 10 or 11 with the non-obvious choices? Add WHEN YOU TRAP A TIGER definitely, but maybe the 3 other books should be Steven’s picks for a picture book/non-fiction/graphic novel to get to 10? And let the committee select the reminder from the 3-7 vote-getters.
I agree with what’s already been said, with the most obvious 10 or 11, adding a few others for format diversity (still pulling hard for SNAPDRAGON! But we all know that. I also particularly like the idea of adding some nonfiction, because you never know), and doing a poll for the others as necessary.
I agree with everybody here. I think it makes sense to get us to 10 or 11 titles and then have the committee vote on the last few titles. I think Leonard is on the right track though, I think maybe it needs to be a list with some of the less obvious choices rather than making it a strict cut off at 6 votes.
I would really like to see us include at least one of each of the categories you listed, Steven. Though I will say that the one I feel most strongly about is including a fictional graphic novel. I don’t have a picture book or nonfiction book in mind that I think NEEDS to be on the list and there are so many excellent chapter books this year plus we do have at least one memoir which is technically nonfiction.
I love seeing how the nominations have changed throughout the year. Thank you so much for your hard work.
I agree with everyone else. Choose the first ten or eleven and then have the committee vote on the final books to be chosen. I do think all formats deserve to be recognized. So, a picture book, nonfiction title, early reader and fiction graphic novel deserve to be considered. Keep up the excellent work.
I disagree. With many recent honors going to graphic novels and “picture books” I feel its a disservice to say those arena are not “obvious choices”. Over the past few mocks there is a plethora of love for past winners (Wolk, Bradley, etc.) which don’t pan out in the actual awards.
I would love to see more diversity and inclusion of other formats in the Mock and love for books like Snapdragon, Stamped, King and the Dragonflies, and Dragon Hoops.
Adrian – I am not sure where the disagreement is. I interpreted Steven’s phrase “obvious choices” as meaning the top vote getters, which in this case would mean all MG novels: WHEN YOU TRAP A TIGER, BLACKBIRD GIRLS, GOFAS, and PRAIRIE LOTUS, leaving the committee to address the lack of representation in other genres.
My suggestion was that perhaps Steven could instead fill the initial list with top vote getting non-MG novels (though I think WYTAT has enough votes that it has to be included) – so perhaps WHEN YOU TRAP A TIGER, CHANCE, SKUNK AND BADGER, and BECOMING MUHAMMAD ALI. The latter three, while not exactly hitting the genres Steven mentions, do bring variety to the list: all have illustrations, one includes verse, they are arguably aimed at younger readers, and all have at least 4 votes. Then the committee can wrangle over which of the many remaining MG novels with similar vote totals they want to add to the discussion list.
(Of course, if Steven felt strongly enough about particular genres, he could make other selections by going down to the 2 vote pool for OVERGROUND RAILROAD, SNAPDRAGON, LINDBERGH, WHO GIVES A POOP etc. I would suggest though, based on outcry in past years, not selecting something if something in the exact same genre has more votes.)
Alas I just finished THE ENIGMA GAME and would have nominated it. (Steven has mentioned it a couple times as well as a candidate for nomination.)