Annal:1986 Newbery Medal
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Newbery Medal in the year 1986. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- 1986 Newbery winner
- 1986 Scott O'Dell winner
- 1985 Golden Kite-fiction winner
- Score: 30.36
“Did Mama sing every day?” Caleb asks his sister Anna. “Every-single-day,” she answers. “Papa sang, too.”
Their mother died the day after Caleb was born. Their house on the prairie is quiet now, and Papa doesn’t sing anymore. Then Papa puts an ad in the paper, asking for a wife, and he receives a letter from one Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton, of Maine. Papa, Anna, and Caleb write back. Caleb asks if she sings. Sarah decides to come for a month. She writes Papa: I will come by train. I will wear a yellow bonnet. I am plain and tall, and Tell them I sing. Anna and Caleb wait and wonder. Will Sarah be nice? Will she like them? Will she stay?
Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun
- 1985 Golden Kite-nonfiction winner
- 1985 Horn Book-nonfiction winner
- 1986 Newbery honor
- Score: 26.35
For centuries, Japan had isolated itself from the outside world by refusing to trade with other countries and even refusing to help shipwrecked sailors, foreign or Japanese. The country’s people still lived under a feudal system like that of Europe in the Middle Ages. But everything began to change when American Commodore Perry and his troops sailed to the Land of the Rising Sun, bringing with them new science and technology, and a new way of life.
- 1986 Newbery honor
- Score: 6.36
In the Old Days There Were Songs
Something is bothering Russel Susskit. He hates waking up to the sound of his father’s coughing, the smell of diesel oil, the noise of snow machines starting up.
Only Oogruk, the shaman who owns the last team of dogs in the village, understands Russel’s longing for the old ways and the songs that celebrated them. But Oogruk cannot give Russel the answers he seeks; the old man can only prepare him for what he must do alone. Driven by a strange, powerful dream of a long-ago self and by a burning desire to find his own song, Russel takes Oogruk’s dogs on an epic journey of self-discovery that will change his life forever.
