HEAVY MEDAL 2025 Mock Newbery: 32 Nominations
I can’t say I’m that surprised with our first round of Mock Newbery Nominations.
- 95 titles nominated for 32 unique titles
- THE TENTH MISTAKE OF HANK HOOPERMAN LEADS BY A LANDSLIDE
- Year-long front-runners LOUDER THAN HUNGER, AND THEN, BOOM AND THE FIRST STATE OF BEING follow closely behind
- I am surprised that FERRIS didn’t receive more love and the ENIGMA GIRLS did (I guess Steven’s selling it that well)
Here are the totals,of nominations, meaning titles that will definitely be considered for the Mock Newbery! Our next nomination call will come in the beginning of November and we can nominate two more titles (and then a final two in December)

Title | Author | Total |
THE TENTH MISTAKE OF HANK HOOPERMAN | Choldenko | 13 |
LOUDER THAN HUNGER | Schu | 9 |
AND THEN, BOOM! | Fipps | 7 |
THE FIRST STATE OF BEING | Kelly | 7 |
FERRIS | DiCamillo | 6 |
ENGIMA GIRLS | Fleming | 5 |
MAX IN THE HOUSE OF SPIES | Gidwitz | 4 |
NOT QUITE A GHOST | Ursu | 4 |
OLIVETTI | Millington | 4 |
THE COLOR OF SOUND | Barth-Isler | 3 |
MAGNOLIA WU UNFOLDS IT ALL | Miller | 3 |
THE SECRET LIBRARY | Magoon | 3 |
PLAIN JANE AND THE MERMAID | Brosgol | 3 |
I’M FROM HERE, TOO | Sheth | 2 |
KAREEM BETWEEN | Safadi | 2 |
KYRA, JUST FOR TODAY | Zarr | 2 |
MID-AIR | Williams | 2 |
SONA AND THE GOLDEN BEASTS | LaRocca | 2 |
ALL ABOUT U.S. | Lamothe and Volovski | 1 |
BLACK STAR | Alexander | 1 |
THE HOUSE BEFORE FALLING INTO THE SEA | Wang | 1 |
JUPITER RISING | Schmidt | 1 |
THE LAST APPLE TREE | Mills | 1 |
LIGHT AND AIR | Wendell | 1 |
LUNAR NEW YEAR LOVE STORY | Yang | 1 |
MEDUSA | Marsh | 1 |
THE NIGHT WAR | Brubaker-Bradley | 1 |
ONE BIG OPEN SKY | Cline-Ransome | 1 |
A STRANGE THING HAPPENED IN CHERRY HALL | Warga | 1 |
TREE. TABLE. BOOK | Lowry | 1 |
WHAT IS COLOR | Weinberg | 1 |
THE WRONG WAY HOME | O’Shaughnessy | 1 |
Filed under: Nominations
About Emily Mroczek-Bayci
Emily Mroczek (Bayci) is a freelance children’s librarian in the Chicago suburbs. She served on the 2019 Newbery committee. You can reach her at emilyrmroczek@gmail.com.
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I had my list of nominations for awhile, and then I read KAREEM BETWEEN. It was a tough choice, but FERRIS got pushed out of my top 3. I’m certain it will be in my November nominations (famous last words, I know).
Besides revealing the books with most support, the nominations list can help us identify what we might be missing. Only three nonfiction titles is pretty typical, but I’m impressed that the three titles are very different from each other (ENIGMA GIRLS, ALL ABOUT OF US, WHAT IS COLOR?).
Almost everything is somewhere near the middle of the Newbery age range. Not much on the younger or older edges. But that’s pretty common for a mock Newbery like this. None of us are reading as thoroughly as the real Committee, I’m pretty sure, and it makes sense for us to focus more on the ones with little or no questions about age.
One thing that strikes me is that, unless I’m mistaken, the authors of the top nine books are all white. Author background can’t be a consideration as we evaluate a book…it’s the words on the page. But it makes me wonder if we’re reading as diversely as we should be. I’m thinking of myself here too. One of my nominations is by a person of color (MID-AIR), but she’s an obvious must-read, as a former Honor recipient. And I have read some books with strong cultural content that I don’t feel reach Newbery contender level (BUFFALO DREAMER, for example). But what am I missing? There’s broader representation lower on the list, so I might pay special attention to that as I line up the nominated books I still need to read. And beyond this list, make sure my net is cast wide enough to include the widest variety of authors. Fortunately, this is easier these days than it was ten or twenty years ago, since we’re seeing far broader representation in children’s publishing than we had for so long.
Erin Entrada Kelly is in the top nine and she is Filipino, but I take your point. I almost nominated BLACK GIRL YOU ARE ATLAS by Renee Watson (also a previous award-winning author). I have a hard time with collections (both poetry and short stories) for Newbery because there are some I think are amazing and some that are just ok. They are harder to get behind than a single work.
Thanks for the catch, Dest. I’ve been thinking about the Renee Watson too. I wondered about the age level. I think it’s accessible to middle school ages, but it seemed like teens might be the core audience she’s addressing, especially with the autobiographical poems towards the end. Some of the poems are just great! “How Sisters Love” among many other examples….
I also see a title or two with more nominations that I would have predicted…because I don’t rate them that highly…which almost always happens. On the Committee, it’s exciting to see the books that you’re most excited about show up frequently on the nomination list. But you also have to pay close attention to the ones that impressed you less. Maybe reread them with a more open mind…that’s where the written justifications of other members can help you see what you might have missed. Or you might take another look and still feel unenthused…in which case, it makes sense to be ready to articulate why you feel that way, since you know others had a different response.
Even though Anne Ursu is white, I think she did something interesting with invisible illness in Not Quite a Ghost, which can impact everyone, regardless of race or ethnicity (it wasn’t a top vote getter, but one of my nominees). All ALSC award committees are required to formulate EDI goals, which helps guarantee that writers of color and their books get serious consideration. As far as Heavy Medal goes, we still have four nominations left. For my first batch, I went with books that I felt were solidly middle grade. For my second, I will probably choose ones that straddle middle grade and YA. Of course, the Newbery Award Definitions states, “Children are defined as persons of ages up to and including fourteen, and books for this entire age range are to be considered.” Furthermore, the revised extended definitions state (among other things) that a book for 13-or-14 year olds can “be given an award only if it does what it sets out to do as well as or better than other, younger books that are also eligible.” I think this is an improvement over the past when I think it said something like books for 13-and-14 years old had to be more distinguished than other books at that level, even though the committees were unlikely to be reading all eligible books that spanned, say, grades 6-10. ( I worked on getting the expanded definitions into the award manuals the first time around, but it’s possible I’ve gotten the earlier version wrong).
I really like that phrase “does what it sets out to do” from the definitions that Julie references above. It’s not always simple to define what a book “sets out to do,” but it’s so important to keep that principle in mind. It’s tempting to evaluate a book based on what we think it should be (or should have been). Or to assume, when an author’s choice doesn’t seem right to us, that it’s a flaw or mistake…rather than accepting that choice as part of what the book sets out to do, then evaluating that choice it terms of how effective it is.
For example (since I just read what I wrote above and I don’t know if it’s makes sense even to myself), I think about the two invisible guys on Max’s shoulder in MAX IN THE HOUSE OF SPIES. We can wonder what the novel would be without those guys…and may even think it would have been more distinguished. But that’s irrelevant to a Newbery discussion. Instead we have to look at how that choice helps the book “do what it sets out to do”…or hinders it. The author created those two characters for a reason. It’s fair to note where they enhance the plot/characters/themes/etc. and/or where they don’t work as well; but not fair to say: including those characters was a mistake….
I am surprised that the novel-in-verse by Mae Respicio, ISABEL IN BLOOM is not yet on this list. Hope that colleagues will read this and decide to add the title. The popularity of novels in verse is growing and former “reluctant” readers are picking them up and asking for more.