I just got back from a whirlwind trip to Denver for ALA Midwinter. While I was there, they announced the winner of this year’s Newbery medal: Neil Gaiman‘s Graveyard Book. I’ve been hoping to get around to this book– but if it’s anywhere near as well-written as Gaiman’s other juvenile titles (like Coraline), the Newbery committee chose well. (You can hear an interview with Neil, and an excerpt from the book, on NPR’s website.) Congratulations to Neil, and to the other authors who won Newbery honors and ALA’s other awards for children’s books this year.
When I blogged about last year’s Newbery awards, I noted that most of the 1922 medalists and honorees were online, and that about a dozen later Newbery honorees were also out of copyright and could go online. Since then, my partner-in-bookery Mary has found and digitized many of those later books for a special Celebration of Women Writers exhibit, “Newbery Honor Books and Medal Winners by Women, 1922-1964“. You can also find these and other online prize-winners from my Prize Winning Books Online page.