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:
Millions of Cats (1928)
An elderly couple realize they are very lonely. The wife wants a cat, so her husband sets off in search of one. Each seems lovely, so he walks back home with millions of cats following him.
Read online at archive.org.
Little Blacknose: The Story of a Pioneer (1929)
Early American railroading as seen through the eyes of the Dewitt Clinton, the first steam engine built for the New York Central Railroad.
Read online at archive.org.
Pran of Albania (1929)
The story of a fourteen-year-old girl in nineteenth century Albania who rejects an arranged marriage.
Read online at archive.org.
Miska Petersham
Floating Island (1930)
The Doll family is shipwrecked on a desert island.
The Fairy Circus (1931)
Inspired by a human circus that performs in their meadow, the fairies put on a circus of their own for the woodland creatures.
The Railroad to Freedom: A Story of the Civil War (1932)
A story about the underground railroad that brought slaves from the South to Canada.
The ABC Bunny (1933)
The rhythmic and rhyming text tells the story of Bunny, driven from Bunnyland to Elsewhere after an unfortunate accident with an apple. Every letter in the alphabet is represented in Bunny’s journey. The illustrations are original lithographs drawn by Wanda Gág.
Read online at archive.org.
Wanda Gág
The Forgotten Daughter (1933)
In second century Rome the daughter of a centurion is raised as a slave.
A Day On Skates: The Story of a Dutch Picnic (1934)
The story of a school outing on the frozen Dutch canals.
All Sail Set (1935)
When his father loses his fortune, a boy is taken on by a famous shipbuilder and eventually makes a maiden, record-breaking trip around Cape Horn on the “Flying Cloud.”
The Good Master (1935)
The adventures of Jancsi and his cousin Kate on his father’s ranch in Hungary.
Read online at archive.org.
Honk the Moose (1935)
One winter up on Minnesota’s Iron Range, two boys adopt a moose who decides to stay the winter in the livery barn. Read online at archive.org.
Young Walter Scott (1935)
An imaginative biography of Sir Walter Scott’s youth.
The Golden Basket (1936)
Two girls from England are on holiday in Bruges, Belgium and meet the littlest orphan, Madeleine.
Phebe Fairchild: Her Book (1936)
Phebe spends a year with her country cousins in Connecticut in the 1840’s.
Winterbound (1936)
Kay and Garry Ellis spend the winter in an old farm house, and are the better for it.
Bright Island (1937)
The story of Thankful Curtis, her island home, her time at school and her return.
Read online at archive.org.
On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937)
In the fourth volume of her history Laura and the Ingalls family move to Minnesota and live in a dugout on the banks of Plum Creek.
Helen Sewell
Mr. Popper’s Penguins (1938)
When Mr. Popper unexpectedly becomes the proprietor of a troupe of penguins, he takes them on the road to make ends meet.
Read online at archive.org.
Richard Atwater
Boy with a Pack (1939)
Bill Crawford sets out from New Hampshire with a peddlar’s pack for the Ohio country.
