8 Best of the Year Lists and 1 Heavy Medal List: How do they compare?
This is the time of year when review journals and library systems release their best books of the year lists. My reactions generally fall into three categories:
- Excitement to see books I’ve read and liked getting recognized
- Disappointment for the books that don’t show up on many (or any) lists
- Surprise (but not really, because this happens every year) to see so many interesting looking books that I didn’t read, or in some cases, wasn’t even aware of.
The above relates to my personal reading, but the same stuff can apply to Heavy Medal. We never see that much direct alignment between our nominations and the various “best of lists,” and that makes some sense. On Heavy Medal we focus directly on Newbery potential. Others may be looking more at library collection development, popularity with kids, balance of genres and ages, and/or recommendations for parents and caregivers. Still, when I look at these lists I can’t help wondering about all of the excellent books out there and wonder what surprises we’ll see on January 27th when the Newbery Medal winner is announced.
Today we’ll compare our list of 57 titles that were nominated on Heavy Medal to eight “Best of 2024” lists. We looked at best of the year lists from five journals and three library systems:
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
- Booklist Editor’s Choice 2024
- Horn Book Fanfare 2024
- Kirkus Best Books of 2024
- Publishers Weekly Best Books – 2024
- School Library Journal Best Books 2024
- Chicago Public Library Best of the Best 2024
- Evanston Public Library 101 Great Books for Kids 2024
- New York Public Library Best Books for Kids 2024
We’ll also see lists coming from the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books and The Cooperative Children’s Book Center coming later in December or early 2025.
The full list of our nominations, with their Best of 2024 list status included, is below. Here a few highlights first:
From our list of 57 nominated titles, only three showed up on five or more of the eight “Best of” lists:
- BLACK GIRL YOU ARE ATLAS by Watson: 6 Best of 2024 lists / 1 Heavy Medal nomination
- ENIGMA GIRLS by Fleming: 6 Best / 10 HM
- MID-AIR by Williams: 5 Best / 6 HM
There were several Heavy Medal favorites that did not do so well on the Best of 2024 lists. Two books received nine(!) nominations on Heavy Medal, but did not appear on any of the other lists.
- AND THEN, BOOM! by Fipps: 0 Best of 2024 lists / 9 Heavy Medal nominations
- THE COLOR OF SOUND by Barth Isler: 0 Best / 9 HM
And the two books that have received the most nominations on Heavy Medal were hardly noticed by the Best of 2024 lists:
- THE TENTH MISTAKE OF HANK HOOPERMAN by Choldenko: 2 Best of 2024 lists / 19 Heavy Medal nominations
- LOUDER THAN HUNGER by Schu: 1 Best / 16 HM
So what did the Best of 2024 lists love that we’ve missed on Heavy Medal? I did a rough look and don’t really see any dominant titles. I didn’t count up the picture books, ya, or heavily illustrated nonfiction (like THE IGUANODON’S HORN or GO FORTH AND TELL), but I just see a small handful of middle grade fiction titles that show up on three or four Best of 2024 lists and missed out on Heavy Medal nominations (and I almost nominated two of these):
- WEIRDO by Weaver: 4 Best of 2024 lists / 0 Heavy Medal nominations
- CHRONICLES OF A LIZARD NOBODY by Ness: 3 Best / 0 HM
- RED BIRD DANCED by Quigley: 3 Best / O HM
- STELLA AND MARIGOLD by Barrows: 3 Best / 0 HM
Here’s the complete list. I’m never sure what it all means, and it doesn’t clarify the Newbery race for me at all, but it’s always interesting….
| Title | Author | HM Nominations | Best of 2024 Lists (8 lists) |
| THE TENTH MISTAKE OF HANK HOOPERMAN | Choldenko | 19 | 2 |
| LOUDER THAN HUNGER | Schu | 16 | 1 |
| OLIVETTI | Millington | 12 | 2 |
| ENIGMA GIRLS | Fleming | 10 | 6 |
| THE WRONG WAY HOME | O’Shaughnessy | 10 | 4 |
| THE FIRST STATE OF BEING | Kelly | 10 | 1 |
| MAGNOLIA WU UNFOLDS IT ALL | Miller | 9 | 4 |
| MAX IN THE HOUSE OF SPIES | Gidwitz | 9 | 3 |
| NOT QUITE A GHOST | Ursu | 9 | 3 |
| FERRIS | DiCamillo | 9 | 2 |
| AND THEN, BOOM! | Fipps | 9 | 0 |
| THE COLOR OF SOUND | Barth-Isler | 9 | 0 |
| MID-AIR | Williams | 6 | 5 |
| PLAIN JANE AND THE MERMAID | Brosgol | 5 | 2 |
| QUAGMIRE TIARELLO COULDN’T BE BETTER | Larsen | 5 | 2 |
| THE SECRET LIBRARY | Magoon | 5 | 1 |
| ACROSS SO MANY SEAS | Behar | 4 | 3 |
| 1 | Safadi | 4 | 3 |
| MALLORY IN FULL COLOR* | Leahy | 4 | 2 |
| KYRA, JUST FOR TODAY | Zarr | 4 | 1 |
| NOT NOTHING | Forman | 4 | 1 |
| TREE. TABLE. BOOK | Lowry | 4 | 0 |
| HOW IT ALL ENDS | Hunsinger | 3 | 4 |
| THE BLETCHLEY RIDDLE | Sepetys & Sheinkin | 3 | 1 |
| LIGHT AND AIR | Wendell | 3 | 1 |
| JUPITER RISING | Schmidt | 3 | 0 |
| SHARK TEETH | Winston | 2 | 4 |
| WHAT IS COLOR | Weinberg | 2 | 4 |
| THE HOUSE BEFORE FALLING INTO THE SEA | Wang | 2 | 3 |
| ONE BIG OPEN SKY | Cline-Ransome | 2 | 2 |
| SONA AND THE GOLDEN BEASTS | LaRocca | 2 | 3 |
| DEER RUN HOME | LeZotte | 2 | 2 |
| BASIL & DAHLIA* | McCullough | 2 | 0 |
| I’M FROM HERE, TOO | Sheth | 2 | 0 |
| INVISIBLE ISABEL* | Pla | 2 | 0 |
| THE WITCHING WIND | Lloyd | 2 | 0 |
| BLACK GIRL, YOU ARE ATLAS | Watson | 1 | 6 |
| THE GIRL WHO SANG* | Nadel | 1 | 4 |
| BUFFALO DREAMER | Duncan | 1 | 3 |
| LUNAR NEW YEAR LOVE STORY | Yang | 1 | 3 |
| ALL ABOUT U.S. | Lamothe and Volovski | 1 | 2 |
| BLACK STAR | Alexander | 1 | 2 |
| DEEP WATER* | Sumner | 1 | 2 |
| MANILLA SEMILLA FINDS HER QUETZAL VOICE* | Lapera | 1 | 2 |
| SPIRIT SLEUTHS | Jarrow | 1 | 2 |
| MEDUSA | Marsh | 1 | 1 |
| A STRANGE THING HAPPENED IN CHERRY HALL | Warga | 1 | 1 |
| ULTRAVIOLET* | Salazar | 1 | 1 |
| THE CATS OF SILVER CRESCENT* | Noel | 1 | 0 |
| HEROES* | Gratz | 1 | 0 |
| THE HOTEL BALZAAR | DiCamillo | 1 | 0 |
| THE LAST APPLE TREE | Mills | 1 | 0 |
| LIBRARY GIRL* | Horvath | 1 | 0 |
| LUMINOUS LIFE OF LUCY LANDRY* | Johnson | 1 | 0 |
| THE NIGHT WAR | Bradley | 1 | 0 |
| WE ARE BIG TIME* | Khan | 1 | 0 |
| WHEN WISHES WERE HORSES* | Voigt | 1 | 0 |
Filed under: Nominations
About Steven Engelfried
Steven Engelfried retired from full-time library work a couple years ago and now works as a part-time Youth Librarian at the West Linn Public Library in Oregon. 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.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
SLJ Blog Network
Our 2025 Preview Episode of The Yarn Podcast!
Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Fox All Week by James Marshall
Mini Marvels: Hulk Smash | Review
When Book Bans are a Form of Discrimination, What is the Path to Justice?
Take Five: Gun Violence in Middle Grade Fiction
Our 2025 Preview Episode!
ADVERTISEMENT
Since we’re talking “Best of 2024” stuff in this post, I have to mention the end-of-the-year content in a couple of other SLJ blogs. Not specifically Newbery-related, but if you love children’s books, be sure to check these out if you haven’t already:
Betsy Bird’s annual “31 Days 31 Lists” posts on Fuse #8 are amazing. She covers everything about 2024 children’s books. It’s a great resource for collection development and also just plain fun every day of the month.
Every year Travis Jonker gifts us with “The Year in Miscellanea” on the 100 Scope Notes blog. He’s got everything from “Dedication of the Year” to “Most Famous Children’s Book Creator Spotted in the Crowd at the NBA Finals.” Highly entertaining.
Thanks for doing this Steven. I bet you have a lot of spreadsheet data! I think I’m most surprised by two things. One, that AND THEN, BOOM! didn’t make any lists. Two, that THE FIRST STATE OF BEING only made one list. I nominated THE FIRST STATE OF BEING, and though I haven’t read it now in many months, it still stays with me as one of the top books of the year. Granted, is top Newbery also “best?” Both books are by authors who have won big awards, so I thought that would help, not hurt, their cause.
Here’s the thing. At Heavy Medal we are looking at certain criteria. But quality and distinction of excellence in plot, character, setting, and more, I would think would also make a book one of the “best.” If it’s excellent for Newbery, isn’t it also just a plain old excellent book?
Weirdo was so good! I had considered putting that one forward!
Last year it was Hercules Beal that was ignored by Betsy Bird and Hornbook. This year Hank and Boo. I find this so puzzling and greatly value the companionship of Heavy Medal readers.