Newbery Honor Book
The Newbery Honor Books are runners-up to the Newberry Medal, which is awarded each year for the preceding year’s most distinguished American picture book for children.
The medal is named in honor of John Newbery. He was an eighteenth-century British publisher of juvenile books. He made it a priority to create books specifically for children.
No Award was given in 1923, 1924, or 1927. That is because no book was considered suitable.
Learn more: official Newberry Medal and Honor homepage.
Winners:
The Great Wheel (1957)
Eighteen-year-old Conn leaves Ireland and sails to America, where he helps build the first Ferris Wheel for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.
The Junior Literary Guild edition has a library binding. A prepublication binding in yellow cloth without stamping on the spine has also been seen.
Read online at archive.org.
Gone-Away Lake (1957)
Portia and her cousin Julian discover an abandoned summer colony on the shores of a gone-away lake.
Read online at archive.org.
Joe Krush
The Family Under the Bridge (1958)
A homeless man meets a family of three children, their mother and their dog camping on his spot under a bridge over the Seine and ends up adopting them all.
Read online at archive.org.
My Side of the Mountain (1959)
Sam Gribley takes to the woods and lives by himself for a year.
The Gammage Cup (1959)
A light on the mountain brings conflict to the Land Between the Mountains, and the only Minnipins who stand in the breach are a band of outcasts.
Read online at archive.org.
America is Born: A History for Peter (1959)
The Cricket in Times Square (1960)
The adventures of a country cricket who unintentionally arrives in New York and is befriended by Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat.
Read online at archive.org.
America Moves Forward: A History for Peter (1960)
The Defender (1961)
Turgen, a Siberian herder, protects the mountain sheep from a hard winter.