“Best Books” Lists and Heavy Medal: A look at the year-end picks from children’s book review journals

In late November and early December, major children’s book review journals begin to unveil their “Best Books of the Year” lists. It’s always interesting to see how those lists relate to the books we’ve been suggesting, nominating, and discussing on our Heavy Medal Mock Newbery blog. Though the titles are different every year, I seem to have the same general reactions every time, and this year is no exception:

• Some Heavy Medal favorites don’t show up on as many lists as I think they will.
• Some titles that haven’t been on our radar do well on the review journal lists.
• I’m reminded just how very many excellent books there are out there that I haven’t read, and probably should have.

It does make sense that our Heavy Medal books wouldn’t line up neatly alongside reviewer’s best-of-the-year lists. On Heavy Medal, we’re focused on possible Newbery contenders and always try our best to evaluate title based on the Newbery Terms and Criteria. Review journals have different goals, which vary depending on the publication. They might weigh popularity, inclusivity, or collection coverage differently then we would, for example…though we consider those factors as well.

And of course the journals include books that are clearly ineligible for the Newbery (translations, books by non US authors, and young readers’ editions of adult titles, for example) and ones that seem beyond the range of the Newbery criteria, most notably books for readers outside the 0-14 age range.

With all that in mind, though, we have to take a look at the lists anyway. So far, I’ve only seen four of the seven major lists. [added Horn Book Fanfare, 12-11-23]

• Booklist Editors’ Choice
• Horn Book Fanfare
• Kirkus’ Best of 2023
• Publisher’s Weekly Best Books
• School Library Journal Best Books

These lists aren’t out yet as far as I can tell, but we’ll add them to the notes below as they’re announced:

• Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Blue Ribbons (usually around the 1st of the year)
• Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices (not until late Jan or early Feb I think)

It’s also fun to look at lists by others including bloggers, public libraries, and newspapers. Here’s a sampling of those so far:

• 31 Days, 31 Lists on Fuse #8 (still in progress and always fascinating)
• New York Public Library Best Books for Kids
• Chicago Public Library Best of the Best
• Evanston Public Library 101 Great Books for Kids
• New York Times Best Children’s Books

For comparison’s sake, I looked at the five review journal lists that have been published to date (Booklist, Hornbook, Kirkus, PW, SLJ), plus the three libraries above and the New York Times. I compared those to our list of our Heavy Medal nominations. The full list is below, and here are some things that jumped out:

From our list of nominations, four titles appeared on 7 of the 9 lists:

• AN AMERICAN STORY (7 lists, 1 nomination)
• THE EYES AND THE IMPOSSIBLE (7, 4)
• MEXIKID (8, 6)
• THE MONA LISA VANISHES (7, 10)

Eight other nominated titles appeared or 5 or more lists:

• CHINESE MENU (6 lists, 1 nomination)
• EVERGREEN (5, 1)
• THE LOST YEAR (5, 9)
• THE MANY ASSASSINATIONS OF SAMIR… (5, 6)
• PARACHUTE KIDS (6, 2)
• REMEMBER US (5, 2)
• SIMON SORT OF SAYS (5, 21)
• THE SKULL (6, 6)

All twelve books with at least five Heavy Medal nominations appeared on at least one of the eight lists. But nine books that received two or more nominations did not appear on any of the eight lists:

• THE SONG OF US (4)
• ENEMIES IN THE ORCHARD (3)
• THE LOST LIBRARY (3)
• GATHER (2)
• MIRROR TO MIRROR (2)
• PATTERNS EVERYWHERE (2)
• THE SUPERTEACHER PROJECT (2)
• WHEN CLOUDS TOUCH US (2)
• WHEN SEA BECOMES SKY (2)

A bunch of books that have no Heavy Medal nominations made several best of the year lists, but most of those are less typical Newbery fare, for younger readers. Here are a few more likely Newbery titles that made four best of the year lists and have no Heavy Medal nominations:

• ANIANA DEL MAR JUMPS IN by Mendez
• THE MONKEY TRIAL by Sanchez
• DEAR MOTHMAN by Gow

And finally, here are a three titles that have five or more Heavy Medal nominations, but made just one or two best of the year lists:

• THE LABORS OF HERCULES BEAL (19 nominations, 2 lists)
• THE RED EAR BLOWS ITS NOSE (6, 1)
• THE DREAMATICS (5, 1)
• EB AND FLOW (5, 1)

Our full list of nominations is below, with the best of the year lists total alongside.

Title	Author	Heavy Medal Nominations	Best of the Year Lists (of 9)
ALEBRIJES	Higuera	2	4
AN AMERICAN STORY	Alexander	1	7
ANIMALS IN PANTS	Levinson	2	1
BEA AND THE NEW DEAL HORSE	Elliott	1	0
BEA WOLF	Weinersmith	2	2
A BIT OF EARTH	Riazi	2	0
BUFFALO FLATS	Leavitt	2	0
CARBOARD KING: SNOW & SORCERY	Sell	1	0
CHINESE MENU	Lin	1	6
DOGTOWN	Choldenko & Applegate	2	0
THE DREAMATICS	Cuevas	5	1
DUST	Bowling	1	0
EB AND FLOW	Baptist	5	1
ENEMIES IN THE ORCHARD	VandderLugt	3	0
EVERGREEN	Cordell	1	5
THE EYES AND THE IMPOSSIBLE	Eggers	4	7
FARTHER THAN THE MOON	Lackey	1	0
THE FIRE THE WATER AND MAUDIE MCGINN	Pla	2	1
THE FIREFLY SUMMER	Matson	1	0
A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING	Santat	7	4
GATHER	Cadow	2	1
GINNY OFF THE MAP	Hickey	1	1
GONE WOLF	McBride	3	2
GOOD DIFFERENT	Kuyatt	5	2
HOPE IN THE VALLEY	Perkins	2	2
HOW DO YOU SPELL UNFAIR?	Weatherford	1	4
IMPOSSIBLE ESCAPE	Sheinkin	2	3
IT HAPPENED ON SATURDAY	Dunlap	1	0
THE LABORS OF HERCULES BEAL	Schmidt	19	2
LEEVA AT LAST	Pennypacker	1	2
THE LOST YEAR	Marsh	9	5
THE LOST LIBRARY	Stead & Mass	3	0
THE MANY ASSASSINATIONS OF SAMIRE, THE SELLER OF DREAMS	Nayeri	6	5
MERMAID DAY	Murray	1	0
MEXIKID	Martin	6	8
MIRROR TO MIRROR	LaRocca	2	0
THE MONA LISA VANISHES	Day	10	7
MY HEAD HAS A BELLYACHE	Harris	6	4
NOTHING ELSE BUT MIRACLES	Albus	2	0
ONCE THERE WAS	Monsef	1	0
PARACHUTE KIDS	Tang	2	6
PATTERNS EVERYWHERE	Perron	2	0
THE PUPPETS OF SPELHORST	Dicamillo	3	0
THE RED EAR BLOWS ITS NOSE	Schechter	6	1
REMEMBER US	Woodson	2	5
SIMON SORT OF SAYS	Bow	21	5
THE SKULL	Klassen	6	6
THE SONG OF US	Fussner	4	0
STAR SPLITTER	Kirby	2	0
STATELESS	Wein	1	0
A STONE IS A STORY	Booth	1	0
SUNSHINE	Krosoczka	1	0
THE SUPERTEACHER PROJECT	Korman	2	0
A WALK IN THE WOODS	Grimes	1	4
WE STILL BELONG	Day	1	3
WHEN CLOUDS TOUCH US	Lai	2	0
WHEN SEA BECOMES SKY	McDunn	2	0
A WORK IN PROGRESS	Lerner	3	1

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Filed under: Nominations, Uncategorized