X-Nico

11 unusual facts about Newbery Medal


Arthur Bowie Chrisman

His collection of sixteen short stories, Shen of the Sea: A Book for Children (1925), received the Newbery Medal in 1926.

Elmwood Park Zoo

In the Newbery Medal-winning fiction book Maniac Magee, the titular character lives briefly in the buffalo pen of the Elmwood Park Zoo.

Henry and Mudge

Henry and Mudge is a series of American children's books written by Newbery Medal winner Cynthia Rylant and published by Simon & Schuster.

Higher Power

The children's novel The Higher Power of Lucky, which received the Newbery Medal in 2007, is a story of a child who follows the direction of her higher power, a concept she learned from a twelve-step group.

Jaffrey, New Hampshire

Jaffrey was the setting for a 1950 biography by Elizabeth Yates entitled Amos Fortune, Free Man, winner of the 1951 Newbery Medal.

John Newbery

In 1922, the John Newbery Medal was created by the American Library Association in his honour; it is awarded each year to the "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children".

In honour of his achievements in children's publishing, the Newbery Medal was named after him.

Pam Conrad

Her book Our House: Stories of Levittown was a Newbery Medal finalist.

Prince Rhun

In The High King (winner of the Newbery Medal), Rhun is now the King of Mona, as his father has died in the unspecified length of time which has passed since the end of The Castle of Llyr.

The One and Only Ivan

The One and Only Ivan is a children's book by Katherine ( K.A.) Applegate and the winner of the 2013 Newbery Medal.

Whipping boy

The children's book The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman, which is about a prince and his whipping boy, was the winner of the Newbery Medal in 1987.


Constantinos Coconis

Constantinos (Ted) Coconis is an American illustrator who illustrated many children's books, including the 1971 Newbery Award-winning The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Cromer Byars, and The Golden God, Apollo by Doris Gates.

Reformed Mennonite

Newbery Honor-winning Kathryn Lasky's novel Beyond the Divide is ostensibly about a fourteen-year-old Amish girl heading west with her father in 1849 after he has been shunned by their community for attending a funeral outside the faith.

Sons from Afar

Sons From Afar (1987) is the sixth book in Cynthia Voigt's Tillerman Cycle, the series of novels dealing with Dicey Tillerman's family which also includes Homecoming, Dicey's Song (winner of the 1983 Newbery Medal), The Runner, A Solitary Blue, Come A Stranger, and Seventeen Against the Dealer.

The Cat Who Went to Heaven

The Cat Who Went to Heaven is a 1930 novel by Elizabeth Coatsworth that won the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1931.