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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:
Boy with a Pack (1939)
Bill Crawford sets out from New Hampshire with a peddlar’s pack for the Ohio country.
By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939)
Pa takes a job on the railroad and move Ma, Laura, Mary, Carrie and Grace to the Dakota Territory where they spend the winter in a surveyor’s shanty.
Helen Sewell
Runner of the Mountain Tops: The Life of Louis Agassiz (1939)
A short biography of the nineteenth century scientist who first theorized the existence of past ice ages. He was known for opposing Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Read online at archive.org.
The Long Winter (1940)
The Indians warn that there will be a hard winter so Pa moves Ma, Laura, Mary, Carrie and Grace to his store building in town for the winter.
Helen Sewell
Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison (1941)
The story of a twelve year old English girl who was captured by a raiding party of Shawnee Indians and French Canadians. Her family was killed and she spent the rest of her life living with the Delaware and later the Seneca tribes.
Read online at archive.org.
Down Ryton Water (1941)
An account of the Pilgrims’ voyage to America, from the point of view of a young boy.
Little Town on the Prairie (1941)
In the seventh book of her biographical series, Laura is living with Ma, Pa, Mary, Carrie and Grace in De Smet and earns her teaching certificate.
Helen Sewell
The Middle Moffat (1942)
Jane is the mysterious middle Moffat whose adventures we follow in this second book about the Moffat family.
Read online at archive.org.
Mountain Born (1943)
Peter learns to be a shepherd under the tutelage of Old Benj.
These Happy Golden Years (1943)
In the eighth book of her biography Laura Ingalls becomes Mrs. Almanzo Wilder.
Helen Sewell
Rufus M. (1943)
In this volume of the history of the Moffat family, Rufus, the youngest sets out to make the family fortune.
Read online at archive.org.
The Hundred Dresses (1944)
Wanda wears the same dress to school, but she has a hundred dresses at home in her closet.
Read online at archive.org.
The Wonderful Year (1946)
Ellen moves with her family to a fruit farm in Colorado. The book won the Julia Ellsworth Ford Foundation Award as well as a Newbery Honor.
Read online at archive.org.
Li Lun: Lad of Courage (1947)
Because of his fear of the sea, a young Chinese boy is sent to a distant mountain where he proves his bravery. Banished to a mountaintop to learn to grow rice, Li Lun proves his courage as he fights the elements and his own loneliness to make his rice seedling flourish where no one else has for generations.
Seabird (1948)
The Seabird follows the history of American seafaring.
Read online at archive.org.
Lucille Webster Holling
My Father’s Dragon (1948)
When an alley cat he befriends tells Elmer Elevator about the captive baby dragon on Wild Island, he determines to go to the island and set him free.
Read online at archive.org.
Daughter of the Mountains (1948)
Momo undertakes a dangerous journey from the mountains of Tibet to the city of Calcutta, in search of her stolen dog Pempa.
The Defender (1951)
Turgen takes pity on the mountain sheep during a hard winter.
George Louden, Jr.
Minn of the Mississippi (1951)
We see the Mississippi River through the eyes of a snapping turtle.
Read online at archive.org.
Charlotte’s Web (1952)
Fern adopts the runt of the litter and names him Wilbur, but it is Charlotte, A. Cavatica, who ensures he will always have a home on the Arable farm.
Read online at archive.org.