Here’s a list of all of the books to win the Newbery Medal, except the most recent, which is The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill. (Which I’ve read and is excellent, by the way.) Which one do you think is the best, out of those you’ve read? I’ve read almost all, except for the winners in 2003, 2005-07, 2011-13, 2015.) http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberywinners/medalwinners
So many wonderful choices, but I’m going to go with Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes.
I haven’t been following the Newberys since I was of the right age to read them…so, stopping in the mid-1970s.
My favorites as a kid were THE VOYAGES OF DR. DOOLITTLE (1923 – pretty racist by contemporary standards); THE TWENTY-ONE BALLOONS (1948); IT’S LIKE THIS, CAT (1964); MRS. FRISBY AND THE RATS OF NIMH (1972); and everyone’s favorite, A WRINKLE IN TIME (1963).
My daughter read 1994’s THE GIVER, which I found excellent, and could be my top pick, even beating out L’Engle. I even enjoyed the movie.
My son read 1999’s HOLES, which I didn’t really care for.
Damn…I’ll have to go for THE GIVER, then. Especially for that one amazing moment when the protagonist sees a FLASH of red…and you realize that no one in the dystopian world can SEE COLOR.
Sorry, Madeleine, your crypto-Christianity knocks you from the top slot. You’re more subtle than C.S. Lewis, but I can still sniff the hymn-books in your work.
I’m the lone hater of A Wrinkle in Time. IMHO the best is From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I don’t buy many fiction books, but that one has a place of honor on my shelves.
Wow, read only four of them–Island of the Blue Dolphins, Bridge to Terabithia, The Graveyard Book, and Moon Over Manifest. Out of those, I’d have to pick Bridge to Terabithia.
From my childhood experience, I have to go with From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, which was my favorite, although there are many others on the list that I enjoyed.
But I also have to put in a word for *Sarah, Plain and Tall *. Although the book came out long after my childhood, the T.V. movie with Glenn Close (and its sequels) are among my favorites to watch over and over again.
It’s too late to edit, but I have to change my answer. When I first read the thread title, I reflexively thought of The Chronicles of Prydain, but then I couldn’t find them on the Newbery list. Now I see that I missed the listing for The High King, which is absolutely the all-time best (and of course someone brought it up while I was editing).
Wow, am I really the first poster to say “The Westing Game”? I love that book, and could read it over and over. So many layers to the mystery, such interesting personalities, such unusual story structure…
I say A Gathering of Days. I must admit I found it boring when I read it as a kid, but it got better every time I tried it again. I still have my copy, and could easily open it at any page and fall in. It’s got a cozy, comforting feel to me.
One of my personal qualifications to be the all-time best Newbery Medal book is that it should be a stand-alone. I’ve always felt that some of the books that are parts of series are getting an extra kick from the series overall being good.
So if I have to pick, I’m going to say From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. It’s just a great book from start to finish. It’s also the kind of book that holds up to repeated readings, and kids at different ages get different things out of it (when I first read it, it was a straight up adventure story, and it was only when I was older that I got some of the more nuanced parts).
My runner-up is Caddie Woodlawn. It came out in 1936, and it is STILL an engaging read. It’s so well-written. It’s exciting, it’s funny, it’s a very American story.
I’ve read 24 of them. While my personal favorites are The Hero and The Crown and The Westing Game, for all-time best I think I would have to go with A Wrinkle in Time.