The Books Just Keep Coming: 55 Suggested Titles for the Heavy Medal Mock Newbery
Thanks to all who suggested possible Newbery-worthy books in June! Our updated list is below. It includes 55 titles all together, including 17 making their first appearance (noted with an asterisk).
We still have one book alone at the top with nine suggestions, but after that it’s packed, with 25 titles ranging from two to four. And the year’s not even halfway done yet! We’ll call for more suggestions in early July…
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| TITLE | AUTHOR | TOTAL |
| SIMON SORT OF SAYS | Bow | 9 |
| THE MANY ASSASSINATIONS OF SAMIR, THE SELLER OF DREAMS | Nayeri | 4 |
| NEARER MY FREEDOM | Edinger & Younge | 4 |
| AN AMERICAN STORY | Alexander | 3 |
| A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING | Santat | 3 |
| THE ONE AND ONLY RUBY | Applegate | 3 |
| YOU ARE HERE: CONNECTING FLIGHTS | Oh | 3 |
| ALL THE BEATING HEARTS | Fogliano | 2 |
| ANINA DEL MAR JUMPS IN | Mendez | 2 |
| BEAKY BARNES: EGG ON THE LOOSE | Stein | 2 |
| BIG TREE | Selznick | 2 |
| BUFFALO FLATS | Leavitt | 2 |
| * THE EYES AND THE IMPOSSIBLE | Eggers | 2 |
| FOR LAMB | Kline-Ransome | 2 |
| HENRY LIKE ALWAYS | Bailey | 2 |
| IT HAPPENED ON SATURDAY | Dunlap | 2 |
| * THE LABORS OF HERCULES BEAL | Schmidt | 2 |
| THE LOST YEAR | Marsh | 2 |
| LOVE IS LOUD | Wallace | 2 |
| MY RED, WHITE, AND, BLUE | Tyson | 2 |
| NO MATTER THE DISTANCE | Baldwin | 2 |
| THAT FLAG | Brown | 2 |
| * WHEN CLOUDS TOUCH US | Lai | 2 |
| WHAT HAPPENED TO RACHEL RILEY | Swinarski | 2 |
| WHEN SEA BECOMES SKY | McDunn | 2 |
| THE WINDEBY PUZZLE | Lowry | 2 |
| * A BIT OF EARTH | Riazi | 1 |
| A CROWN FOR CORINA | Kemp | 1 |
| * CROWNED | Bethencourt | 1 |
| EBB AND FLOW | Baptist | 1 |
| EVERGREEN | Cordell | 1 |
| * THE GHOSTS OF RANCHO ESPANTO | Cuevas | 1 |
| * GOOD DIFFEERENT | Kuyatt | 1 |
| * GROUNDED | Saeed, et al | 1 |
| * HANDS | Maldonado | 1 |
| * THE HUMAN KABOOM | Rubin | 1 |
| JOVITA WORE PANTS | Salazar | 1 |
| JUST JERRY | Pinkney | 1 |
| * SUNSHINE | Krosoczka | 1 |
| LASAGNA MEANS I LOVE YOU | O’Shaughnessy | 1 |
| * THE LAST PLASTIC STRAW | Romito | 1 |
| LEEVA AT LAST | Pennypacker | 1 |
| MIRROR TO MIRROR | LaRocca | 1 |
| MY HEAD HAS A BELLYACHE | Harris | 1 |
| NELL PLANTS A TREE | Wynter | 1 |
| NOT AN EASY WIN | Giles | 1 |
| ONCE UPON A BOOK | Lin & Messner | 1 |
| OUR ROOF IS BLUE | Echenique | 1 |
| * PARACHUTE KIDS | Tang | 1 |
| * PUSH PULL MORNING | Peters | 1 |
| * RACE AGAINST DEATH | Hopkinson | 1 |
| SCHOOL TRIP | Craft | 1 |
| SUPERPOD | Nickum | 1 |
| * SUPERTEACHER PROJECT | Korman | 1 |
| THIS IS NOT MY HOME | Yoh and Chang | 1 |
| A WORK IN PROGRESS | Lerner | 1 |
Filed under: Suggestions
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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Check the author on The One and Only Ruby.
The One and Only Ruby is written by Katherine Applegate, not Kate DiCamillo.
Thanks for catching that Kim and Sara. I wish I could say that’s the last time we’ll carelessly attach the wrong writer to a book, but probably not (though we’ll try not to for sure). We always appreciate it when readers let us konw. It’s now corrected.
My suggestion of Kelly Baptist’s EB AND FLOW was left off!
So sorry Leonard. Just fixed, and thanks for catching that!
The internet is a bit confusing on this, but it seems like Sanders’ Blood Brothers may be 2022.
It does look like BLOOD BROTHERS was first published in 2022, with a paperback edition released this year. We’ll drop it from the list, but if anyone has different information let us know…Thanks again Leonard!
While I found Nearer My Freedom a great read, is it eligible as the text is lifted directly (but not in its entirety) from a previously published work?
That’s a good question, Dave. I don’t have the book in front of me, but I think I remember it showed an example (maybe at the end?) showing a passage from Aquiano’s original text next to the version that Edinger and Younge created from that. I’d like to take another look at that, looking at the level and content of the changes, to help ponder that. And they did add the parts that provided historical context throughout.
Is that enough to qualify as an “original work” which is required by the Newbery Terms & Criteria? I’m not sure. The Newbery Manual goes a little further than the Terms in defining that eligibility. The book must be “is a NEW creation, and not a re-creation from some other work.” Well, NEARER is pretty much recreated from another work, so maybe not qualified? But the words they use did not really appear in the same form in the original work…so maybe it’s ok?
It’s okay, though, if an author “has created a new work based on earlier work that is in the public domain, such as a novel based on a Shakespeare play.” The original work by Aquiano is in the public domain…but I don’t really think what’s done in NEARER is similar to re-telling Shakespeare.
The Manual also says: “Not all cases are clear-cut, and each committee must make its own judgments about originality.” We won’t really get to know what the 2024 Committee decides about this book (unless it wins), so we’ll likely wind up making our own judgement call in the fall. Although I tend to lean towards assuming eligibility with one’s like this, if only because it should be such an interesting book to discuss (also I was way wrong about UNDEFEATED a few years ago…)