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December 10, 2021 by Steven Engelfried

“Best Books,” Mocks, and the Newbery Medal

December 10, 2021 by Steven Engelfried   7 comments

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This is the time of year that book review journals share their “best books of the year” lists.  These are always fascinating, and significantly different from the lists of nominations we collect here on Heavy Medal. That makes perfect sense, since on we’re focusing specifically on Newbery Criteria on Heavy Medal, while the journals have their own guidelines for the lists (and these vary with the different publications). Still, it’s always interesting to compare.

So far I’ve seen four lists by the major journals:  School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Horn Book, and Kirkus. As far as I can tell, Booklist and The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books are not out yet. [update: Booklist‘s “Editors’ Choice” and BCCB’s “Blue Ribbon” lists are out!] I totaled up the four lists so far in order to compare to the titles we’ve looked at on Heavy Medal. I didn’t track every single title: I only added picture books and teen titles if they received a nomination on HM, for example.  And tried to skip all of the Newbery-ineligible titles. Here are a few observations:

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13 books landed on at least three of the lists. Four of those received no nominations on Heavy Medal: one graphic novel (BORDERS), one picture book biography (NINA), one nonfiction (REVOLUTION IN OUR TIME) and one poetry collection (HELLO EARTH). 

Title AuthorTotal “Best Books” lists (out of 4 so far)Heavy Medal Nominations
BEATRYCE PROPHECYKate DiCamillo416
NINATraci Todd40
BLACK BOY JOYKwame Mbalia (ed)31
BORDERSThomas King30
FALLOUTSteve Sheinkin35
GENIUS UNDER THE TABLEEugene Yelchin314
HELLO EARTHJoyce Sidman30
LAST CUENTISTADonna Barba Higuera33
LEGEND OF AUNTIE POShing Yin Khor32
MILO IMAGINES THE WORLDMatt de la Peña35
REVOLUTION IN OUR TIMEKekla Magoon30
TOO BRIGHT TOO SEEKyle Lukoff38
UNSPEAKABLECarole Boston Weatherford34
WATERCRESSAndrea Wang36

This next list shows the 16 books that received the highest number of Heavy Medal nominations. Of these, four were not named on any of the Best of the Year lists so far:  JUST LIKE THAT, LION OF MARS, A PLACE TO HANG THE MOON, and PITY PARTY. 

TitleAuthorHeavy Medal NominationsTotal “Best of” lists (4 so far)
RED, WHITE, AND WHOLERajani LaRocca191
BEATRYCE PROPHECYKate DiCamillo164
AMBER AND CLAYLaura Amy Schlitz142
GENIUS UNDER THE TABLEEugene Yelchin143
JUST LIKE THATGary Schmidt130
STARFISHLisa Fipps102
SHAPE OF THUNDERJasmine Warga91
LION OF MARSJennifer L. Holm80
PLACE TO HANG THE MOONKate Albus80
TOO BRIGHT TOO SEEKyle Lukoff83
WATERCRESSAndrea Wang63
AMARI AND THE NIGHT BROTHERSB.B. Alston51
DAVINCI’S CATCatherine Gilbert Murdock51
FALLOUTSteve Sheinkin53
MILO IMAGINES THE WORLDMatt de la Peña53
PITY PARTYKathleen Lane50

How has this played out in past years? Below is the list of Newbery and Honor books from the past three years, along with the number of Best Books lists they made and the number of Heavy Medal Nominations.

Most (but not all) Newbery titles also do well in the area of starred reviews (thanks once again to Jen J. for her handy spreadsheet of starred reviews that goes all the way back to 2011). There are more misses on the Heavy Medal column; most (but not all) of those are with books on the lower or higher edge of the age range.

Newbery BooksAward YearBest Books ListsHeavy Medal Nominations
WHEN YOU TRAP A TIGER2021511 (most noms: 15)
ALL THIRTEEN202151
BOX202150
FIGHTING WORDS2021611
WE DREAM OF SPACE202157
A WISH BEFORE DARK202115
NEW KID2020420 (20)
GENESIS BEGIN AGAIN202038
OTHER WORDS FOR HOME202057
SCARY STORIES FOR YOUNG FOXES202018
UNDEFEATED202050
HELLO UNIVERSE201947 (8)
CROWN201940
LONG WAY DOWN201961
PIECING ME TOGETHER201943

It would be cool if we could look at all of this and come up with a numbers-based way to predict Newbery winners, but I’m afraid not. It’s still going to come down to the 15 individual Committee members and their year of exhaustive reading, intense discussion, and the casting of their final ballots.

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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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Comments

  1. Emily Mroczek-Bayci says

    December 10, 2021 at 10:31 am

    ohh all these statistics are so much fun!
    NINA is a book I don’t even think I looked at this year. I better investigate it.
    I’d also love to give a shout out to Betsy Bird’s non official but quite fun 31 days of lists where she does a different list every day of December. I always find some good, obscure reads on these. Today is books with a message! https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2021/12/10/31-days-31-lists-2021-books-with-a-message/

    • Eric says

      December 10, 2021 at 2:28 pm

      NINA is a brilliant (one could even say perfect) picturebook and I’d like to read thoughts on its potential for Newbery. Check Horn Book’s Calling Caldecott Blog next week for my extensive thoughts on its Caldecott potential.

  2. Meredith BUrton says

    December 10, 2021 at 4:00 pm

    I love how thorough this blog is in analyzing the lists and comparing. It has truly shocked me how Just Like That has been neglected by “Best of: lists. Is everyone just angry with Schmidt for his decision at the beginning of the book or something? It just doesn’t make sense as the writing, plot and characterization is very strong. Oh well. I am glad the book is receiving recognition here.
    Thank you for this comprehensive analysis. I had never heard of Borders until it was mentioned here. I hope to one day read The Legend of Auntie Po as well. Maybe an audio adaptation will be produced.

    • Steven Engelfried says

      December 10, 2021 at 4:54 pm

      I’m not sure about JUST LIKE THAT. I was thinking maybe the journals lean more towards authors and titles that might be less known to their readers…but Kate DiCamillo made 4 lists, so scrap that theory.
      I haven’t read BORDERS yet either, but it sounds interesting. Amazon has a preview of several pages. The author lives in Canada, but appears to have US citizenship as well, so should be eligible.

  3. Katrina says

    December 11, 2021 at 10:34 am

    So interesting! Although not 100% accurate—I nominated Undefeated, but you ruled it ineligible! 😆

    • Steven Engelfried says

      December 11, 2021 at 12:51 pm

      We should have followed your lead, Katrina! My mistake, but I’m still glad it won the Honor that year…

      • Katrina says

        December 11, 2021 at 7:28 pm

        Yes, the lesson is always listen to me! 😆 Seriously though, I’m so glad it got recognized too!

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