Annal:1980 Newbery Medal
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Newbery Medal in the year 1980. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-32
- 1980 NBA–Youth winner
- 1980 Newbery winner
- Score: 20.3
Born to the rigors of life on a small New Hampshire farm, thirteen year old Catherine Hall is keeping house for her widowed father and youngers sister as she begins her journal in 1830, unaware that it is to be one of the most memorable times of her life. Her father’s remarriage introduces a new mother and brother into her home; the plight of a runaway slave opens her eyes to injustice; the tragedy of early death brings her first growing-up grief. And everyday life moves on as well: quilting, berrying, the great “breaking out” after the snowbound winter, sugaring in the spring, rivalries and romances.
Joan Blos’s moving novel captures the hardship as well as the tranquility of early American farm life and the sturdiness, the tenderness, of the people whose way of life it was.
The Road From Home: The Story of an Armenian Girl
- 1979 Horn Book-nonfiction winner
- 1980 Newbery honor
- Score: 16.29
David Kherdian re-creates his mother’s voice in telling the true story of a childhood interrupted by one of the most devastating holocausts of our century. Vernon Dumehjian Kherdian was born into a loving and prosperous family. Then, in the year 1915, the Turkish government began the systematic destruction of its Armenian population.
