Wednesday Roundup: Middle Grade Fiction: the Newbery Sweet Spot?

STEVEN:  So far with our “Wednesday Roundup” posts we’ve mostly looked at books that, for one reason or another, face some challenges when thrown into the Newbery discussion. Too old, too young, too many pictures, too poetic…And we explored how these books really are very much eligible and should be considered. This time we’ll look at books that hit what can seem like the Newbery sweet spot: Realistic (mostly) prose novels written for middle grades. No worries about the 0-14 age limit. No illustrations, or not enough to matter.  These are the books that, rightly or not, many of us think of as….Newbery-ish. And plenty of books like this have done well in past years. Though not as well in more recent years. Emily, what are a few of the classic middle grade Newberys that come to your mind?

EMILY:   I mean clearly all my favorites growing up, which when you were a (very very) young librarian– HOLES, THE VIEW FROM SATURDAY, BUD NOT BUDDY, THE GIVER, MERCI SUAREZ CHANGES GEARS (wait…). Not very surprisingly, these are also books that often fit the “most notable Newbery” label. They all check the criteria beautifully and have compelling characters (TURTLE! Stanley… Bud!), strong settings (Camp Green Lake, anyone?!)… the fact that I can recall these details off the top of my head means something!! 

STEVEN:  Going back a ways, I remember being a new librarian jumping into recent Newbery winners and discovering DICEY’S SONG by Cynthia Voigt (1983 Medal). I hadn’t realized how rich and powerful children’s literature could be and started to think: this career could be fun! As a child reader, FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER is one I read that fits this category perfectly: characters, setting, and plot were all highly original and memorable.  

EMILY:   OK, I know we’re not allowed to talk about our committee years, but I think it’s worthy to say that all of our titles can qualify as “classic middle grade,” and that’s not because we have clout. I think that it’s the easiest to fit all the Newbery criteria in a classic middle grade novel. There’s no age or theme issues that you may have with YA and you’re not struggling with a short page count to meet everything  (picture books) and you’re not dealing with a format that doesn’t even HAVE ALL the criteria (nonfiction). So it’s a lot easier to get 15 people to agree that a middle grade book meets all the Newbery criteria more than anything else.

STEVEN: Great point! It’s that “15 people to agree” that can get very challenging in a Newbery discussion. It’s possible that with a picture book or a borderline ya book, some from among the 15 may have already decided for themselves that it’s not going to work. Books with zero eligibility questions could have an advantage.

EMILY: One of the questions on our genre survey is” Why do you think so many middle grade books win the Newbery?” and I wanted to highlight a few of the answers:

• “I think that the reputation of the Newbery as an award for MG Fiction (as untrue as that is) leads to confirmation bias.”
• “Fiction allows for storytelling with age appropriate style that can introduce kids to more complex character development, and themes. Since the Newbery historically recognizes books that push boundaries of traditional storytelling, fiction is more versatile.”
• “There’s just more of it. If you open a random School Library Journal, there will be pages and pages of middle grade fiction reviews, and maybe two poetry books or a single page of early chapter/early reader reviews.”
• “MG novels allow for more deeply felt stories (as do verse novels). The best of them have levels of complexity without being intimidating.”

STEVEN:  All great answers…thanks HM readers! And this year’s discussion list so far pretty clearly shows that for the 2025 Newbery discussion, at least here in our Mock Newbery, middle-grade rules.

EMILY:  Looking at this year’s nomination list “classic middle-grade” really takes the cake with the majority/all of our top ten titles (ENIGMA GIRLS is obviously nonfiction and AND THEN, BOOM is verse… but they both do appeal to that middle grade audience). I guess this makes it easier to compare these titles because they’re all middle grade? Of course I need to say that this year it’s all bad parent books and it’s like a battle of which child handles the difficulties the most. It’s also interesting to look how some of the parents struggle with addiction (HANK, KYRA, SHARK), while others simply have parents that struggle with navigating life and being parents (OLIVETTI, COLOR OF SOUND, LOUDER THAN HUNGER). 

STEVEN:  And, to be fair, not all of the middle grade fiction on our list features troubled parents. TREE.TABLE.BOOK, THE TELEPHONE TREE, and THE WRONG WAY HOME tackle big themes like aging, grief, and big life choices at levels that can certainly merit Newbery discussion.  

EMILY: I’ll be honest: I’m really struggling on picking a front runner out of all of these… they’re blending together for me a bit… STEVEN how do I get out of this haze of middle grade maybe excellence?

STEVEN: As usual, I go back to the Newbery Criteria. Not so much the part about “literary qualities” (theme, plot, characters, etc.), but that so very complicated “most distinguished” bit, and those supporting words (“eminence”…”excellence”…”distinction”…). We somehow have to identify specific examples of how one of these many very good books is more distinguished than the others, even if it’s only in the subtlest ways. I’m still working through what I think of these books myself, though one book seems to be standing out more recently (hint: It starts with “Q”). We’d love to hear more from readers: What are your front runners (a little hard) in this overloaded category and (much harder)…why?

Filed under: Book Discussion