Newbery Award Books

This is a complete list of the books that have won the Newbery Award. Click on the title to see if the book is available. If you want to find a Newbery winning book that is funny or scary or mysterious or serious, click on the "Find a Good One" tab.

ANIMAL STORY - A story of a dog who unwittingly becomes a hero to a park full of animals. Johannes, a free dog, lives in an urban park by the sea. His job is to be the Eyes--to see everything that happens within the park and report back to the park's elders, three ancient Bison. But changes are afoot. A story about friendship, beauty, liberation, and running very, very fast,.

HISTORICAL FICTION - Under the cover of night, twelve-year-old Homer flees Southerland Plantation with his little sister Ada, unwillingly leaving their beloved mother behind. Through tangled vines, secret doorways, and over a sky bridge, the two find a secret community called Freewater, deep in the swamp. In this society created by formerly enslaved people Homer finds new friends, almost forgetting where he came from. But when he learns of a threat that could destroy Freewater, he crafts a plan to find his mother and help his new home.

SCIENCE FICTION - Petra Peña wanted to be a storyteller, like her abuelita. But Earth has been destroyed by a comet, and only a few hundred people have been chosen to journey to a new planet. When Petra wakes to this new planet she is the only person who remembers Earth. A sinister Collective has taken over the ship during its journey and purged the memories of all aboard - or purged them altogether. Petra alone now carries the stories of our past, and with them, any hope for our future. Can she make them live again?

FANTASY & FOLKLORE - Would you make a deal with a magical tiger? This story brings Korean folklore to life as a girl goes on a quest to unlock the power of stories and save her grandmother. When Lily and her family move in with her sick grandmother, a magical tiger straight out of her Halmoni's Korean folktales arrives, prompting Lily to unravel a secret family history. Long ago, Halmoni stole something from the tigers. Now they want it back. And when one of the tigers approaches Lily with a deal--return what her grandmother stole in exchange for Halmoni's health--Lily is tempted to agree. But deals with tigers are never what they seem! With the help of her sister and her new friend Ricky, Lily must find her voice. and the courage to face a tiger.

REALISTIC FICTION - New Kid is a graphic novel about starting over at a new school where diversity is low and the struggle to fit in is real. As seventh grader Jordan Banks makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, he soon finds himself torn between two worlds--and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighborhood friends and staying true to himself?

REALISTIC FICTION - Thoughtful, strong-willed sixth-grader Merci Suarez navigates difficult changes with friends, family, and everyone in between. Merci and her older brother are scholarship students at a rich private school in Florida. They don't have a big house or a fancy boat, and they have to do extra community service to make up for their free tuition. At school Merci has to deal with bossy Edna Santos and at home she has to worry about her grandfather who has started to forget things. Who knew sixth grade would be this difficult?

REALISTIC FICTION - The lives of four misfits are intertwined when a bully's prank lands shy Virgil at the bottom of a well and Valencia, Kaori, and Gen band together in an epic quest to find and rescue him.

FANTASY - Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the Forest, Xan, is kind. She rescues the children and delivers them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey. One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. As Luna's thirteenth birthday approaches, her magic begins to emerge--with dangerous consequences. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch.

REALISTIC FICTION - Every Sunday after church, CJ and his grandma ride the bus across town. But today, CJ wonders why they don't own a car like his friend Colby. How come they always have to get off in the dirty part of town? Each question is met with an encouraging answer from grandma, who helps him see the beauty; and fun; in their routine and the world around them.

SPORTS STORY - REALISTIC FICTION - 12-year old Josh Bell and his twin brother Jordan are awesome on the court. But Josh has more than basketball in his blood, he's got mad beats, too, that tell his family's story in verse, in this fast and furious middle grade novel of family and brotherhood.

COMEDY - ANIMAL STORY - A cynical girl, who has read every issue of Terrible Things Can Happen to You, rescues a squirrel from a vacuum cleaner. But when the squirrel develops superpowers things get interesting. This is the laugh-out-loud story of their adventures together.

ANIMAL STORY - When Ivan, a gorilla who has lived for years in a down-and-out circus-themed mall, meets Ruby, a baby elephant that has been added to the mall, he decides that he must find her a better life.

COMEDY - HISTORICAL FICTION - This novel is partly autobiographical and partly fictional. In Norvelt, Pennsylvania, twelve-year-old Jack Gantos spends the summer of 1962 grounded for various offenses until he is assigned to help an elderly neighbor with a most unusual chore involving the newly dead, molten wax, twisted promises, Girl Scout cookies, underage driving, lessons from history, typewriting, and countless bloody noses.

HISTORICAL FICTION - Twelve-year-old Abilene Tucker is the daughter of a drifter who, in the summer of 1936, sends her to stay with an old friend in Manifest, Kansas, where he grew up. Over the summer she pieces together her father's story, aided by some mysterious letters. It seems that Manifest's history is full of colorful and shadowy characters--and long-held secrets. The more Abilene hears, the more determined she is to learn just what role her father played in that history.

REALISTIC FICTION - MYSTERY - SCI FI - As her mother prepares to be a contestant on the 1980s television game show, "The $20,000 Pyramid," a twelve-year-old New York City girl tries to make sense of a series of mysterious notes received from an anonymous source that seems to defy the laws of time and space.

SUPERNATURAL FICTION - Nobody Owens is a normal boy, except that he has been raised by ghosts and other residents of the graveyard.

HISTORICAL PLAYS - A collection of short one-person plays featuring characters, between ten and fifteen years old, who live in or near a thirteenth-century English manor.

REALISTIC FICTION - Fearing that her legal guardian plans to abandon her to return to France, ten-year-old aspiring scientist Lucky Trimble determines to run away while also continuing to seek the Higher Power that will bring stability to her life.

HISTORICAL FICTION - Teenagers in a small town in the 1960s experience new thoughts and feelings, question their identities, connect, and disconnect as they search for the meaning of life and love.

HISTORICAL FICTION - Chronicles the close friendship between two Japanese-American sisters growing up in rural Georgia during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the despair when one sister becomes terminally ill.

FANTASY - The adventures of Desperaux Tilling, a small mouse of unusual talents, the princess that he loves, the servant girl who longs to be a princess, and a devious rat determined to bring them all to ruin.

HISTORICAL FICTION - Falsely accused of theft and murder, an orphaned peasant boy in fourteenth-century England flees his village and meets a larger-than-life juggler who holds a dangerous secret.

HISTORICAL FICTION - Tree-ear, a thirteen-year-old orphan in medieval Korea, lives under a bridge in a potters' village, and longs to learn how to throw the delicate celadon ceramics himself.

HISTORICAL FICTION - During the recession of 1937, fifteen-year-old Mary Alice is sent to live with her feisty, larger-than-life grandmother in rural Illinois and comes to a better understanding of this fearsome woman.

HISTORICAL FICTION - Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless African-American boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father--the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.

COMEDY - As further evidence of his family's bad fortune, which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

HISTORICAL FICTION - In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.

REALISTIC FICTION - Four students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who choses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition.

HISTORICAL FICTION - In medieval England, a nameless, homeless girl is taken in by a sharp-tempered midwife, and in spite of obstacles and hardship, eventually gains the three things she most wants: a full belly, a contented heart, and a place in this world.

REALISTIC FICTION - After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left.

SCIENCE FICTION - Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives.

REALISTIC FICTION - After the death of the beloved aunt who has raised her, twelve-year-old Summer and her uncle Ob leave their West Virginia trailer in search of the strength to go on living.

REALISTIC FICTION - When he finds a lost beagle in the hills behind his West Virginia home, Marty tries to hide it from his family and the dog's real owner, a mean-spirited man known to shoot deer out of season and to mistreat his dogs.

MODERN FOLKTALE - After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries.

HISTORICAL FICTION - In 1943, during the German occupation of Denmark, ten-year-old Annemarie learns how to be brave and courageous when she helps shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis.

POETRY - A collection of poems describing the characteristics and activities of a variety of insects. The poems are designed to be read aloud as a "duet" by two readers.

FANTASY/ ADVENTURE - A bratty prince and his whipping boy have many adventures when they inadvertently trade places after becoming involved with dangerous outlaws.

HISTORICAL FICTION - When their father invites a mail-order bride to come live with them in their prairie home, Caleb and Anna are captivated by their new mother and hope that she will stay.

FANTASY - Aerin, with the guidance of the wizard Luthe and the help of the blue sword, wins the birthright due her as the daughter of the Damarian king and a witchwoman of the mysterious, demon-haunted North.

REALISTIC FICTION - In his letters to his favorite author, ten-year-old Leigh reveals his problems in coping with his parents' divorce, being the new boy in school, and generally finding his own place in the world.

REALISTIC FICTION - As the four abandoned Tillerman children settle in with their grandmother, Dicey finds that their new beginning requires love, trust, humor, and courage.

POETRY - A collection of poems describing the curious menagerie of guests who arrive at William Blake's inn.

HISTORICAL FICTION - This story is takes place in the 1940's in the Chesapeake Bay area. Feeling deprived all her life of schooling, friends, mother, and even her name by her twin sister, Louise finally begins to find her identity.

HISTORICAL FICTION - The journal of a 14-year-old girl, kept from 1830-1832, records daily events in her small New Hampshire town, her father's remarriage, and the death of her best friend.

MYSTERY - The mysterious death of an eccentric millionaire brings together an unlikely assortment of heirs who must uncover the circumstances of his death before they can claim their inheritance.

REALISTIC FICTION - Jess is a boy who has trouble fitting in, but when Leslie's family moves into the farm next door they become best friends. They create a secret imaginary kingdom called Terabithia and share many exciting adventures. But then something tragic changes Jess's life forever.

HISTORICAL FICTION - A black family living in the South during the 1930's are faced with prejudice and discrimination which their children don't understand.

FANTASY - In this fourth book of The Dark Is Rising sequence, Will Stanton, visiting in Wales, is swept into a desperate quest to find the golden harp and to awaken the ancient Sleepers.

REALISTIC FICTION - As a slag heap, the result of strip mining, creeps closer to his house in the Ohio hills, fifteen-year-old M. C. is torn between trying to get his family away and fighting for the home they love.

HISTORICAL FICTION - Kidnapped by the crew of an Africa-bound ship, a thirteen-year-old boy discovers to his horror that he is on a slaver and his job is to play music for the exercise periods of the human cargo.

ADVENTURE - While running away from home and an unwanted marriage, a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl becomes lost on the North Slope of Alaska and is befriended by a wolf pack.

FANTASY - Having no one to help her with her problems, a widowed mouse visits the rats whose former imprisonment in a laboratory made them wise and long lived.

REALISTIC FICTION - A teen-age girl gains new insight into herself and her family when her mentally disabled brother gets lost.

HISTORICAL FICTION - A young Black boy living in the south in the late 1800's learns the pain of humiliation and anger when his father is given an unjust jail sentence for stealing a ham from a white man. He must struggle to support his family and deal with terrible loss, but he also finds glimmers of hope.

FANTASY - When the sword of dyrnwyn, the most powerful weapon in the kingdom of Prydain, falls into the hands of Arawn-Death-Lord, Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper, and Prince Gwydion raise an army to march against Arawn's terrible cohorts. In the final confrontation with Arawn and the evil enchantress Achren, Taran is forced to make the most crucial decision of his life.

REALISTIC FICTION/ MYSTERY - At first Claudia and her brother run away from home and decide to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art to teach their parents a lesson, but then Claudia discovers a mystery at the museum that she is determined to solve.

HISTORICAL FICTION - This story is set in the 1940's. After her mother's death, Julie goes to live with Aunt Cordelia, a spinster schoolteacher, who lives in a small midwestern town. She experiences many emotions and changes as she grows from seven to eighteen.

HISTORICAL FICTION - When the great Velázquez was painting his masterpieces at the Spanish court in the seventeenth century, his colors were expertly mixed and his canvases carefully prepared by his slave, Juan de Pareja. This is the story of Juan, who was born a slave and died an accomplished and respected artist. The story of a man whose life was filled with cruelty and with beauty.

HISTORICAL FICTION - In 1960's Spain Manolo Olivar has to make a decision: to follow in his famous father's shadow and become a bullfighter, or to follow his heart and become a doctor.

HISTORICAL FICTION - Dave is a 14-year-old boy growing up in New York in the 1960's. He is always arguing with his father, but he takes comfort in the company of his "crazy" neighbor and the stray cat that she rescues and gives to him.

FANTASY - Meg Murry and her friends become involved with unearthly strangers and a search for Meg's father, who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government.

HISTORICAL FICTION - Set in Galilee in the time of Jesus, this is the story of a young Jewish rebel who is won over to the gentle teachings of Jesus.

ADVENTURE/ HISTORICAL FICTION - Set in the mid 1800's, this is the story of Karana, an Indian girl who survives by herself for eighteen years on a deserted island off the California coast.

HISTORICAL FICTION - His friendship with the town odd-jobs man, Onion John, causes a conflict between Andy and his father.

HISTORICAL FICTION - In 1687 in Connecticut, Kit Tyler, feeling out of place in the Puritan household of her aunt, befriends an old woman considered a witch by the community and suddenly finds herself standing trial for witchcraft.

HISTORICAL FICTION - During the Civil War a young farm boy joins the Union Army, becomes a scout, and temporarily part of Stand Watie's Cherokee Rebels.

HISTORICAL FICTION - When Marley's father returns home from World War II a broken man physically and spiritually, her mother decides that the family needs to leave the city for an extended visit to Grandma's house in the country.

BIOGRAPHY - Growing up in Salem, Nathaniel "Nat" Bowditch seemed too small to be a sailor. But long hours of study made him a master navigator as he learned to sail by the sun, the stars and the compass. And when he took his knowledge and wrote The American Practical Navigator he became famous.

HISTORICAL FICTION - Why do the storks no longer come to the little Dutch fishing village of Shora to nest? It was Lina, one of the six schoolchildren who first asked the question, and she set the others to wondering. So the children decided to bring the storks back to Shora. The force of their vision put the whole village to work until at last the dream began to come true.

HISTORICAL FICTION - This story is takes place in New Mexico in the 1950's. Every summer the men of the Chavez family go on a long and difficult sheep drive to the mountains. All the men, that is, except for Miguel. All year long, twelve-year-old Miguel tries to prove that he is up to the challenge, that he is ready to take the sheep into his beloved Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

HISTORICAL FICTION - An Indian boy who tends llamas in a hidden valley in Peru learns the traditions and secrets of his Inca ancestors.

ANIMAL STORY - The disappearance of a new puppy named Ginger and the appearance of a mysterious man in a mustard yellow hat bring excitement into the lives of the Pye children.

BIOGRAPHY - Amos Fortune, born the son of a king of the At-mun-shi tribe in Africa. When Amos was only fifteen years old, he was captured by slave traders and brought to America. Although his freedom had been taken, Amos never lost his dignity and courage. He dreamed of being free and of buying the freedom of his closest friends. By the time he was sixty years old, Amos Fortune began to see those dreams come true.

HISTORICAL FICTION/ ADVENTURE - Set in medieval England, this is the story of a boy who learns his own strength when he saves the castle and discovers there is more than one way to serve his king.

ANIMAL STORY - Traces the abuses and triumphs of the Arabian stallion who became a founding sire of the Thoroughbred breed, and of the mute Arabian boy who tended him as long as he lived.

FANTASY/ ADVENTURE - Professor William Waterman Sherman intends to fly across the Pacific Ocean. But through a twist of fate, he lands on Krakatoa, and discovers a world of unimaginable wealth, eccentric inhabitants, and incredible balloon inventions.

FANTASY - Relates the adventures of a country doll made of an apple-wood twig with a hickory nut for a head.

HISTORICAL FICTION - Birdie Boyer belonged to a large "strawberry family," who lived on a flatwoods farm Florida. They raised strawberries for a living. It was hard work, but Birdie also had dreams of learning to read and learning to play the organ.

ANIMAL STORY - New folks are coming to live in the Big House. The animals of Rabbbit Hill wonder if they will plant a garden and be good providers. But when the new folks move in the animals are a bit surprised.

HISTORICAL FICTION - This story of a tragically injured young silversmith who becomes involved in the American Revolution is inspiring, exciting, and sad.

HISTORICAL FICTION - Eleven-year-old Adam loved to travel throughout 13th century England with his father, a wandering minstrel, and his dog, Nick. But when Nick is stolen and his father disappears, Adam suddenly finds himself alone. He searches the same roads he traveled with his father, meeting various people along the way. But will Adam ever find his father and dog and end his desperate search?

HISTORICAL FICTION - In 1756, during the French and Indian War in upper New York state, ten-year-old Edward is determined to protect his home and family with the ancient, and much too heavy, Spanish gun that his father had given him before leaving home to fight the enemy.

LEGEND - Based on a Polynesian legend, this is the story of a youth who overcomes his fear of the sea and proves his courage to himself and his tribe.

HISTORICAL FICTION - In 1930's Wisconsin, nine-year-old tomboy Garnet Linden finds a silver thimble. The same day the rains come and end the long drought on her family's farm. Garnet can’t help feeling that the thimble is a magic talisman, for the summer proves to be interesting and exciting in so many different ways.

LEGEND - Retells the legendary story of the Huns' and Magyars' long migration from Asia to Europe where they hope to find a permanent home.

HISTORICAL FICTION - The story takes place in New York City in the 1890s. 10-year-old Lucinda's parents go to Italy for a year and leave her in the care of Miss Peters and Miss Nettie. Lucinda, enjoying her freedom, explores the city on roller skates and makes friends wherever she goes.

HISTORICAL FICTION - The adventures of an eleven-year-old tomboy growing up on the Wisconsin frontier in the mid-1800's.

HISTORICAL FICTION - A Bulgarian peasant boy must convince his mother that he is destined to be a sculptor, not a farmer.

BIOGRAPHY - Biography tracing the fascinating life of Louisa May Alcott from her happy childhood in Pennsylvania and Boston to her success as a writer of such classics as Little women.

HISTORICAL FICTION - When Young Fu arrives with his mother in bustling 1920s Chungking, all he has seen of the world is the rural farming village where he has grown up. He knows nothing of city life. But the city, with its wonders and dangers, fascinates the 13-year-old boy, and he sets out to make the best of what it has to offer him.

HISTORICAL FICTION - The story of a young Navajo boy's spiritual odyssey and coming of age as a medicine man.

FABLE - In ancient Japan, a struggling artist is angered when his housekeeper brings home a tiny white cat he can barely afford to feed. Then the village's head priest commissions a painting of the Buddha for a healthy sum and the artist softens toward the animal he believes has brought him luck. But when he includes the cat in the painting the priest is angered and demands that the painting be destroyed. It seems the artist's life is ruined -- until he is rewarded for his act of love by a Buddhist miracle.

FANTASY - HISTORICAL FICTION - Hitty is a very special doll who belongs to Phoebe. Phoebe is proud of her beautiful doll and brings Hitty everywhere she goes. This is thrilling for Hitty, who finds herself involved in the most wonderful adventures both on land and at sea. She meets many people and makes new friends. This is the story of the first hundred years of Hitty's life. And that's only the beginning for a doll as special as Hitty.

LEGEND/ HISTORICAL FICTION - A Polish family in the Middle Ages guards a great secret treasure and a boy's memory of an earlier trumpeter of Krakow makes it possible for him to save his father.

ANIMAL STORY - The story of the training of a carrier pigeon and its service during the First World War, revealing the bird's courageous and spirited adventures over the housetops of an Indian village, in the Himalayan Mountains, and on the French battlefield.

ANIMAL STORY - Smoky is happy with his life of freedom as a wild horse. But when he is captured by a strange, two-legged creature he discovers a new way of life.

FOLKTALES - A collection of nineteen folk tales collected and retold by the author from his travels throughout Central and South America.

HISTORICAL FICTION - A young man dares not return to England after his ship is taken over by pirates and he becomes a member of their crew.

FANTASY/ ADVENTURE - Accompanied by nine-year-old Tommy Stubbins, Jip the Dog, and Polynesia the Parrot, the good doctor sets off on an adventure-packed voyage to search for a missing colleague. After a nasty shipwreck, the fearless adventurers become stranded on a mysterious island — where they meet even more mysterious creatures.

HISTORY - This classic history book, first published in 1921 and winner of the first Newbery Medal, was illustrated in pen and ink by the author. This version has been updated to incorporate more recent events in world history.