THE FINAL FIVE: Heavy Medal Mock Newbery 2025 Contenders
After almost three full weeks of online discussion, the Heavy Medal Award Committee (HMAC) and many others made it through all 15 titles on our Heavy Medal Book List. Based on those discussions, the HMAC have come up with a Final Five list. We polled the HMAC and while several other books got some support, the five selected were pretty solidly at the top.
Those five titles are listed below. These are the books that the HMAC will discuss in the School Library Journal Live Webcast on Friday, January 24th at 1:00 pm EST. You can still sign up for this free event. At the end, the 12 members of the HMAC will select a Mock Newbery winner, and all of the viewers will get a separate ballot and choose a winner. We will also open up our annual Reader’s Poll tomorrow (January 21). On that poll, you can vote for any of the 15 titles on our HBML.
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And now, here are the HMAC Final Five, in alphabetical order:
- BLACK GIRL YOU ARE ATLAS – Renée Watson
- THE ENIGMA GIRLS – Candace Fleming
- LOUDER THAN HUNGER – John Schu
- MAX IN THE HOUSE OF SPIES – Adam Gidwitz
- THE TENTH MISTAKE OF HANK HOOPERMAN – Gennifer Choldenko





Filed under: Heavy Medal Mock

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.
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